There was once a time when we saw X owner Elon Musk complain that YouTube was a hub for Nonstop Scam Ads. Now, it seems like the same accusations are being hurled in his X app’s direction.
Users on X are fed up with the platform bombarding them with scam ads featuring crypto and blockchain platforms. Similar to how all advertising apps work, X also puts out advertisements depending on the user’s preference, interest, and activity. This means you’re likely to get an ad depending on what your interest at a particular moment in time could be.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk was seen rolling out tweets in the past about rival apps featuring scams but now that his own platform has the same problem taking place on a large scale, we’re seeing more and more scams promoting crypto campaigns increase daily with users expressing great fear and frustration.
Most of the scams entail links to Telegram channels that market phishing links, crypto drainers, and other types of malicious scripts that can steal assets linked to a connected wallet.
X displays ads depending on what the user’s interest might be. Therefore, those not involved in the world of crypto and its associated dealings might not see any ads on display. But those taking up the space are likely to be bombarded by an endless stream of links related to malicious advertisements.
Is it just me or do you expect every crypto related ad here to be a scam?
— LikeARagingBull🇨🇭 (@RagingLazerbull) January 5, 2024
@elonmusk why the fuck are we getting so many ads for crypto bullshit? Stop promoting scams.
— Same_Ol’_Dolphins_FML (@notamused0922) January 5, 2024
90% of the ads I get are crypto scams, only a fool would have thought this approach a good idea.
— Concatenated.Nonsense (@ConcatNonsense) January 5, 2024
the four categories of twitter ads now are crypto scam, horny bait, deranged political, and — idrees (@idreesxkhan) January 5, 2024
All ads displayed across X are scam links targeted toward crypto that drain a user’s wallets in seconds. And more harrowing details on such campaigns were outlined on the X app.
While we’ve witnessed attached abusing the X advertising platform for quite some time now, the increased volume of malicious ads over time continues to increase as we speak, with peak volumes being reached in the past month. This led to some top security researchers raising questions on X and how it needs to do more to curb the act before it’s too late.
Researchers from the Malware Hunter Team were the first to point this out where one researcher posted screengrabs of the ads entailing crypto scams while most of them arose from users having verified accounts. That again is a big question mark on the platform in terms of how secure it really is.
Just got this scam ad: https://twitter[.]com/Scorpio_grain/status/1742779660151455995 pic.twitter.com/IAailctRwJ
— MalwareHunterTeam (@malwrhunterteam) January 4, 2024
The matter seems to have gotten so bad that some users on X are ordered to put out community notes on advertisements as a sign or warning for others that they’re not scams.
To be more specific on how serious the matter is, one security researcher proved how a scam by the name of MS Drainer ended up carrying out a massive theft of $59 million, affecting a whopping 63,210 victims in just nine months.
Through the X app, threat actors were producing ads that acted like they were NFT collectibles dubbed Ordinals Bubbles, false airdrops, and some launching tokens.
For now, it’s not too clear in terms of what the whole vetting process is going to be like on X in terms of how it would prevent ads from carrying out such acts in the first place. But with user frustration reaching new levels or peaks, there has to be a greater source of scrutiny in terms of what advertisements will be allowed across such sites.
Last month, we saw the media outlet Bloomberg roll out a report that spoke about the X advertising revenue and how it was expected to fall by nearly $2.5 billion. The latter is more than a 50% fall in revenue when compared to 2022.
Such actions on X have left users with no choice but to believe that the app seems to be turning a blind eye to such a serious matter about malicious advertising campaigns that are designed to boom its already declining ad revenue.
For now, X is yet to release any statements or answer any queries on this matter. But the fact that it’s already in trouble with decreased usage and many advertisers putting campaigns on pause means they really need to get their acts together if they wish to compete in today’s tech world.
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