Ripple CEO Says Social Media Companies Have Failed to Police their Platforms

Crypto scammers on social media have been a big problem for the industry, and Ripple CEO Brad Garlinghouse has had enough of those impersonators. Last month, he had exposed a fake YouTube channel impersonating him, which unfortunately had over 230,000 subscribers. Garlinghouse took a dig at social media companies for not doing enough to police their platforms and tweeted a thread on Tuesday. He stated that imposter giveaway scams are entirely preventable and that even though hundreds of people have been hurt by these scams, big tech companies continue to “drag their feet.”

Across the industry, social media companies have failed to police their platforms from being abused by the entirely preventable imposter giveaway scams. Hundreds of people (including some of you) have been hurt, yet big tech continues to drag their feet. (1/4)

— Brad Garlinghouse (@bgarlinghouse) April 21, 2020

In the second tweet of the thread, Garlinghouse informed that he and Ripple are taking legal action against YouTube (owned by Google) because the platform has been the epicenter for imposter scams. He further added that YouTube has done next to nothing even after constant takedown requests from them.

“YouTube’s inertia is indicative of an industry-wide problem of a lack of accountability. Victims are forced to jump through hoops to report these scams, and oftentimes that doesn’t even work. In times like these, when consumers already feel vulnerable, it’s more important than ever to protect people from these rampant scams.”

In a separate tweet, Ripple stated that there’s a big need to protect the community members from fake giveaways and impersonations across social media platforms like YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and more.

We see a need—now, more than ever—to protect our community from dangerous online giveaway #scams and #fake impersonations across @YouTube, @Facebook, @Twitter and more. https://t.co/MCLC2edOQA https://t.co/wycFuIhQXc

— Ripple (@Ripple) April 21, 2020

Ripple also posted a blog on its website on Tuesday, stating that it is taking legal action against YouTube to prompt an industry-wide behavior change and set the expectation of accountability. The lawsuit will ask the video content platform to be more aggressively proactive in identifying scams, remove these scams as quickly as possible once identified, and not to profit from such scams. It further added,

““Giveaway scam” is an industry term that relates to attempts to defraud money from unassuming consumers via social media impersonation, by convincing people that if they send money, they will receive more funds in return—typically through airdrop. These scams accurately impersonate individuals and companies, and are often spread through fake social media profiles.”