Twitter detailed its policy on what constitutes as financial scams to prohibit them

tech2 News StaffSep 24, 2019 16:05:38 IST

Twitter is taking steps to finally prohibit financial scams on the platform, something that wasn’t banned earlier. Until now, any kind of financial scam would have had to be reported using the platform’s spam reporting tool but they weren't explicitly banned. Now, Twitter has made changes to its policy to detail out what type of scams are prohibited and how users can report them.

FILE PHOTO: People holding mobile phones are silhouetted against a backdrop projected with the Twitter logo in this illustration picture. Image: Reuters.

Any kind of scam tactics used to take money or private financial information is now banned on Twitter, according to the new policy. If a user creates accounts, posts tweets, or sends direct messages to carry out these fraudulent schemes, they will be banned from the platform. To explain in detail what kind of scammy exchanges are banned, Twitter has listed down all the instances in its help documentation page.

TechCrunch reported that this move comes to Twitter after it had been criticised for the rising number of crypto scams on the platform. If you come across a scam or are a victim of a financial scam, you can report the tweet just like before by clicking on the ‘Report tweet’ option. Then you can select ‘It’s suspicious or spam’, and then select whatever best explains your situation.

Users found to be violating the policy will face consequences based on the severity of the violation. If your account is found to break these rules, your account could be temporarily locked until you provide additional information to prove your identity. When the violation is extremely severe, like using accounts that continuously engage in such behaviour that violate the policy, the user in question will be permanently banned from Twitter.