Facebook verified a Bitcoin scammer pretending to be Elon Musk
Regardless of Fb’s makes an attempt at verifying suspiciously popular accounts, it isn’t good (to say the least). The Verge has reported that the corporate has mistakenly verified a Facebook fan page for Elon Musk as Musk’s personal official account. On prime of that, it seems to be run by a Bitcoin scammer.
The web page, which has 153,000 followers as of this writing, truly acknowledges it is not Musk… no less than within the About part. It says there: “It is a fanpage, importing tweets and so on from him.” However then the URL ends in “ElonMuskoffici”, which signifies they’re actually pretending as if it is official. Within the Web page Transparency part, it says that the individuals who handle the web page are “based mostly in Egypt,” not within the US, which is the place Musk resides.
The account at present has 11 posts, and whereas most of them are simply reposts of Musk’s tweets, the latest one is clearly a phony Bitcoin giveaway (the put up has since been eliminated). The earliest is on October twenty first, however as The Verge identified, the web page was truly created on July twenty eighth 2019 beneath the identify “Kizito Gavin” with a number of identify adjustments since then. It modified its identify to Elon Musk on October seventeenth.
Fb verification requires account house owners to submit proof of their identification, corresponding to driver’s license or passport, however scammers have at occasions discovered methods across the official course of.
We’ve reached out to Meta, the corporate previously often known as Fb, for remark, however haven’t acquired a response simply but.
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