2023 Reportedly Ranked Worst Year for Scams on Twitter/X

Drillimation Systems can blame a Chinese online clothing retailer, a blockbuster Hollywood movie, and the Israel-Hamas War for an increase in scams on Twitter/X and Instagram throughout 2023. The former has had the most on record. Users on either one or both platforms would wake up to a quote tweet or regular mention on Twitter, as well as story and regular mentions on Instagram.

Both platforms were receiving an increase in user reports as all three events this year made them a prime target for cryptocurrency scams. Users were being very annoyed over these scam messages they were receiving. Scammers were using Shein, a summer blockbuster movie, and the Israel-Hamas war to spread crypto fundraising scams on both Twitter and Instagram. The first two were mostly on Instagram, but the third was used on both services mentioned and even Telegram, which Drillimation does not use. Another problem also involved fake gift card offers.

Due to the unprecedented amount of these posts flying around on these platforms, its owners are struggling to remove these posts and terminate the accounts posting these due to the backlog of reports. It was reportedly found in multiple countries. The movie mentioned was also denied a release in multiple countries due to an offensive symbol (its name will also not be mentioned in accordance with these national laws).

2023 has been a difficult year for Twitter. The exodus of users that followed also led to a surge in scam tweets. In 2021, Twitter received over 10 million spam reports, and 260 million tweets were removed as a result of platform manipulation. That number ended up increasing when Bilibili Comics got involved in the mess. Twitter did not publish a transparency report for the first half of 2022, but over 1.6 million accounts were suspended for violating the Twitter Rules, with over 2,500 being for scams. While a formal transparency report has never been published for 2023, these numbers could be higher.

Meta is unable to provide information on spam reports on Instagram, but during the first half of 2023, Facebook removed more than 2.7 billion posts for violating its spam policy. 4% of the removed posts came from user reports, while the other 96% was removed by Facebook’s enforcement systems.

Scammers’ goals are to terrorize users and their surroundings. We have no idea what scams may arise in 2024, but we are hoping we don’t see a repeat from past months once 2023 fades into oblivion.

Sources

• https://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/cybercriminals-israel-hamas-spread-crypto-fundraising-scams-x-telegram-instagram/article67453483.ece _{(free access subject to free trial, subscription normally required)}
• https://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2023/an-update-on-twitter-transparency-reporting
• https://transparency.twitter.com/en/reports/platform-manipulation.html#2021-jul-dec