It appears all Twitter posts are not equal in power when they are published. Prominent figures with large followings can make things happen. And when those accounts are hacked by whatever method can be devised, nefarious results can occur. This is exactly the embarrassment that Twitter officials have faced recently. The management officials at Twitter now have more concerns than just dealing with misleading posts these days, as a 17-yr old Florida resident has allegedly pulled a fraudulent stunt with the company that is anchored in California.
High-value social media targets
According to a recent white collar crimes police report, the underage male defendant also had two alleged co-conspirators in the scam. The 17-year-old male was able to contact Twitter internet technicians and convince them he was actually from the company IT maintenance department, then requested information regarding specific account access. Those accounts were the official accounts for Barack Obama, Elon Musk, and other prominent celebrities.
Once he had managed to wrangle the information needed to access the prominent accounts, he then reportedly posted a request for donations to a specific Bitcoin account claiming that all contributions would be matched if made within a certain time period. While most Twitter enthusiasts would recognize this as a fraudulent post immediately, that is not the case with all users. Many people are easily swayed by what they see on social media, and in this case a total of $117,000 was collected before Twitter realized the fraudulent activity had occurred.
Of course, this entire report is indeed alleged, and state court officials will still be required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the claims in the charge actually occurred with criminal intent. And even though the state intends to prosecute the primary defendant as an adult, there could still be a compromise in the case when being represented by an aggressive California white collar crimes criminal defense lawyer.