(Kitco News) - As anyone that has attempted to use Twitter for anything meaningful over the past year can attest, the bot issue had become more than just a minor nuisance as dozens of rapid-fire responses to posts drowned out any attempts to start a worthwhile conversation.
That appears to have changed on Monday, as reports have begun to emerge from across Crypto Twitter that the latest move by Elon Musk to limit bot account interactions is having a material effect, much to the delight of die-hard Twitter users.
The first hint that a new solution would soon be implemented came on Sunday when Musk Tweeted that “The bots are in for a surprise tomorrow.”
The Twitter in Chief followed up with a post describing how the company has found a small number of people operating a large number of bot/troll accounts and has now moved to shut down access to the IP addresses of “known bad actors.”
Musk went on to assure the Twitter faithful that while the scammers may attempt to employ other methods to circumvent the IP address block, the social media platform will work diligently to “shut them down as soon as they show up.”
Prior to this move by the platform, posting anything crypto-related by any notable account would result in a barrage of responses from bots that made it nearly impossible to promote a project or engage with the community.
This made it especially difficult for newer projects to market themselves to the crypto crowd on Twitter, which is one of the most effective platforms for promoting crypto projects.
In an effort to test out how effective Twitter’s move to limit bot responses performs, Dogecoin creator Billy Markus tweeted that he “made a test post and instead of seeing 50 bot replies i only saw one,” adding, “much progress, very hype.”
Twitter user “itsmattnow” followed up the tweet from Markus suggesting that “The true test of Bot Control is replying under @davidgokhshtein posts to see if the spam has gotten really handled.”
David Gokhshtein, who is the founder of founder @GokhshteinMedia, followed up that response by posting a “Bot Test” of his own, which at the time of writing had no responses from bots.
Bot Test ????
— David Gokhshtein (@davidgokhshtein) December 12, 2022
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Even Ethereum co-founder Vitalik Buterin chimed in on the matter when Twitter user @NathanpmYoung asked him directly if the bots were gone.
“Honestly can't tell,” Buterin said. “Twitter *seems* to be marginally better to use lately, but no idea how to separate apart stuff Elon did vs crypto-winter vs my brain imagining changes that aren't actually there.”
While some have chimed in to say that bot responses continue to show up on some posts, they also noted that those posts are quickly removed by Twitter.
Musk previously indicated that cutting down the number of bots on the platform was one of his main goals after he acquired the popular social media platform. In a follow-up post after implementing the bot-reducing solution, Musk affirmed that “Twitter will also be moving to prosecute scammers anywhere on Earth.”
They will try other methods, but we’re shutting them down as soon as they show up.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 11, 2022
Twitter will also be moving to prosecute scammers anywhere on Earth.
