As Meta’s Threads celebrates first anniversary, will it now become a challenger to X?

July 5, 2024 Coin Telegraph

‘Scammers’ impersonate Crypto Twitter users on Threads as users near 100M

July 10, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Threads are already seeing potential crypto scammers arrive on the platform as Crypto Twitter personas warn of impersonators on the app.

Scammers appear to have wasted no time since the launch of Meta’s new microblogging app — with several high-profile Crypto Twitter users already warning of imposter accounts on Threads.

Threads was launched on July 5 and has seen sign-ups climb above 98 million in the days following. It’s still far away from Twitter’s estimated 450 million users.

However, over the past few days, multiple Crypto Twitter figures have already pointed out fake accounts on Threads impersonating others or themselves.

On July 8, decentralized finance platform Wombex Finance tweeted an image of a Threads account impersonating it — warning it could be a scammer as the project isn't on the platform.

Attention, #WombexWarriors!

Please be aware that Wombex Finance DOES NOT have an account on the Threads platform.

Any account claiming to be Wombex Finance on that platform is fraudulent and is operated by a scammer!

To avoid scams, always refer to our official channels:… pic.twitter.com/uU8fc2lTiB
— Wombex (@WombexFinance) July 8, 2023

The nonfungible token (NFT) influencer Leonidas tweeted a similar warning a day earlier to their over 93,000 followers, saying that they and other "large NFT accounts" are being impersonated by "scammers" on Threads. Leonidas said they have now made an account on Threads to combat impersonators.

Jeffrey Huang, known on Twitter as Machi Big Brother, tweeted his Threads profile on July 6 with one user pointing out there was already a Threads account impersonating his Twitter persona.

Damn dude you already have a scam account on threads pic.twitter.com/QTDv3V39H7
— Nataly (NLC) (@NLC972) July 6, 2023

So far, the Thread accounts mentioned have avoided sharing any scam or phishing links, with most posting crypto-related content.

For years, Twitter has been a popular channel for crypto phishing scammers, with a common tactic involving hacking into the Twitter accounts of well-known people and businesses and posting malicious links.

Such links usually attempt to dupe unwitting targets into sharing either their crypto exchange login, a crypto wallet seed phrase or have them connect a wallet to a crypto-draining smart contract.

In the first half of this year, $108 million worth of crypto was stolen in such phishing scams according to a report by Web3 security firm Beosin.

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Meta’s Twitter rival Threads to launch July 6, but will the crypto community budge?

July 5, 2023 Coin Telegraph

Coin Telegraph

Meta's microblogging platform is set for launch, with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey pointing out the apps centralization and data harvesting.

Meta is planning to launch its new Twitter rival, Threads, on July 6, only days after Twitter’s “rate limit” debacle which has temporarily capped how many posts users can read per day.

The platform, which is heavily tied to the photo and video-sharing social network Instagram, is expected to be released on Thursday according to a Meta-launched countdown site. Threads has also appeared for pre-order on Apple’s App Store bearing an expected date of July 6.

*Screenshot of Threads’ listing on the App Store. Source: Apple*

Despite an arguably well-timed launch, the app appears to have seen limited fanfare, at least from Twitter’s avid crypto community.

Concerns have been raised around data mining and privacy issues and a lack of confidence the standalone app would even survive.

Crypto Twitter influencer Tiffany Fong, who has 66,600 followers on the platform, told Cointelegraph she hadn’t even heard of Threads until now, stating "I have no clue what the Meta alternative is.” Fong has an active Instagram account with 10,400 followers.

Meanwhile, an ongoing Twitter poll from crypto influencer Kyle Chassé, a self-proclaimed “Bitcoin and crypto OG” has seen over 87% of the 125 respondents signal support for “Team Twitter” over “Team Meta.”

META IS ABOUT TO RELEASE 'THREADS' ON JULY 7th

Which team are you on?
— Kyle Chassé (@kyle_chasse) July 4, 2023

Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey highlighted the Threads app privacy policy which indicated that Threads developer, Instagram Inc, would have access to a wide array of user data including financial info and identifiers.

All your Threads are belong to us https://t.co/FfrIcUng5O pic.twitter.com/V7xbMOfINt
— jack (@jack) July 4, 2023

However, Twitter has almost exactly the same permissions as Threads and collects similar data, according to researchers who responded to Dorsey's post.

Others have raised concerns over the possible longevity of the app given Meta’s previous standalone app launches have either been shut down or had the features rolled into its other products.

“What Meta doesn't want you to remember is that they already shut down Threads back in Dec 2021 after shutting down another standalone app called Direct," said Nick St. Pierre, a Twitter user that posts about artificial intelligence developments.

“They have a history of releasing standalone apps for attention, shutting them down, then rolling the features into [Instagram].”

Meta’s expected Threads launch would come just days after Twitter’s rate limit debacle, which has imposed a temporary restriction on the number of posts that a user can view in a day.

Instead of users having to rebuild a following from scratch, Threads will port Instagram users’ followers and following lists.

According to reports earlier this year, a company spokesperson said that the stand-alone Threads app will support ActivityPub, the decentralized social networking protocol powering Twitter rival Mastodon.

Meanwhile, decentralized Twitter rival Mastodon has seen a recent surge in activity with an increase in active users since Twitter imposed its read restrictions.

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Threads