Changpeng Zhao (CZ), co-founder of Binance, has publicly called for the complete elimination of automated bots on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter. In posts found on X, CZ expressed frustration with the prevalence of bots, particularly those that post via API, arguing that they disrupt human interaction and contribute to spam, scams, and misinformation. He emphasized a preference for genuine human engagement, suggesting that while AI-generated content is acceptable if manually posted, automated bot activity should be entirely disabled.
CZ’s stance highlights a broader issue within the crypto community on X, where bots are often used to impersonate influencers, promote fake tokens, and execute phishing scams. His call to action, directed at X’s owner Elon Musk, includes disabling API posting to curb bot-driven spam while preserving human-centric interactions. This aligns with ongoing concerns about X’s struggles to manage inauthentic accounts and harmful content, as evidenced by studies showing the platform’s challenges in moderating such activity.
However, CZ’s proposal raises questions about feasibility and unintended consequences. While eliminating API-driven bots could reduce spam, it might also limit legitimate automation, such as news feeds or customer service tools, which rely on API access. Additionally, distinguishing between harmful bots and beneficial automation is complex, and a blanket ban could alienate developers or businesses using X for legitimate purposes. Furthermore, CZ’s distinction between manual AI-generated posts and automated ones may not fully address the root issue, as bad actors could still manually post misleading content.
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Critically, while CZ’s frustration is understandable, especially given the crypto sector’s vulnerability to bot-driven scams, his call for “total bot elimination” may oversimplify a nuanced problem. X’s bot issue is part of a larger challenge facing social media platforms, where balancing free speech, user safety, and platform utility remains elusive. Elon Musk has previously promised to address bots, but progress has been slow, suggesting that technical, economic, or strategic barriers may complicate such efforts. Until concrete evidence of a comprehensive solution emerges, CZ’s advocacy, while influential, remains a sentiment rather than a definitive path forward.
AI-powered chatbots have also supercharged romance scams. These scams feature a long-time horizon where a threat actor pretends to have a romantic interest in their target to build up trust with the victim over time. Elon Musk has proposed several solutions to automated bots, including asking users to register a credit card that would incur a small fee of several cents to impose a cost on new account creation, preventing bot farms from mobilizing armies of fake accounts.
Once trust is sufficiently established, the malicious actor typically requests funds from the target either through feigning financial problems or pitching a fake investment scheme. A 2023 study from the Network Contagion Research Institute also found that bots were responsible for manipulating altcoin prices by using coordinated posts from multiple bots to artificially pump prices. Automated bots are a well-documented problem on X that spam the site and are particularly active in the crypto sphere of influence — plaguing users with scam messages advertising fake tokens, phishing links to malicious sites, and pump-and-dump schemes.
