Twitter suspends memecoin-linked AI bot after Elon Musk’s ‘scam crypto’ claim

Twitter has suspended the account of the popular memecoin-linked artificial intelligence-powered bot “Explain This Bob” after Elon Musk alleged it was a “scam crypto account.”

Musk alleged the account was a scam in a tweet on June 18 in a reply to the bot; the account was seemingly suspended soon after.

This sure looks like a scam crypto account. If so, it will be suspended.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) June 18, 2023

The Explain This Bob account reportedly amassed over 400,000 followers before its suspension. The bot was created by Prabhu Biswal from India and used OpenAI’s GPT-4 model to comprehend and provide responses to tweets by those who tagged the account.

The project was also linked to the ERC-20 memecoin Bob Token (BOB), which was launched in April. The suspension sent the price of BOB down over 30%, according to CoinGecko.

The suspension is a U-turn on Musk’s earlier impression of the bot, who tweeted “I love Bob” in response to one of its tweets on April 20, a tweet that also prominently features on the project’s website.

I love Bob

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 19, 2023

Twitter has not taken action against the account for Bob Token, however. The project’s team humorously responded to the news of the suspension, sharing a meme of Musk monitoring a distraught “Bob” in a prison.

#FREEBOB pic.twitter.com/SOUm7opQ7o

— Bob (@BobEthToken) June 18, 2023

Observers believe that Musk is of the view that Explain This Bob is being used as a marketing tactic to prop up BOB’s price.

Related: A PR expert’s tips for memecoin projects

Since the suspension, the hashtag “FREEBOB” has circulated on Crypto Twitter. Most observers take the view that BOB isn’t a scam coin and the suspension is unwarranted, as the launch of the token was “fair” in addition to BOB being “fully decentralized” with a 0% tax mechanism.

Another claimed the team didn’t provide themselves with any tokens or airdrops prior to the Bob Token launch in April.

So does @elonmusk plan to provide any proof of $BOB being a scam or are we just expected to take his word for it?

Intrigued to understand what constitutes a scam crypto account @elonmusk?

Renounced contract0 tax0 team tokensFully decentralisedFair launched

Can you explain… pic.twitter.com/0U2nuUsyqB

— Crypto Boss (CB) (@Cryptoboss2000) June 18, 2023

Cointelegraph contacted Biswal and Twitter for comment but did not receive an immediate response.

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