Frank Finney, the computer scientist’s wife Hal Finney -the recipient of the first transaction on Satoshi Nakamoto’s Bitcoin blockchain- reactivated her late husband’s Twitter account amid concerns that Twitter CEO Elon Musk could purge content from the social media platform due to inactivity.
Many cryptocurrency enthusiasts on Twitter reported on Dec. 16 that Finney’s account registered activity for the first time in more than 12 years. Some speculated that a hacker had taken control of the Bitcoin (BTC) pioneer’s account. and her more than 71,000 followers, but Fran quickly stepped in to dispel the rumors.
“I’m tweeting for Hal […] to prevent your account from being purged by Elon”, said Fran.
I want to keep Hal’s account active, and occasionally will be posting from his account. When I do post, I will continue to tag myself as the poster.
— Fran Finney (@franfinney) December 16, 2022
I want to keep Hal’s account active, and will occasionally post from his account. When I post, I’ll still tag myself as an author.
It’s unclear whether Fran Finney’s intervention can save the cryptocurrency pioneer’s social media presence. ANDn the midst of Musk’s $44 billion purchase of Twitter, which was completed in October, he claimed that he endorsed free speech as “the foundation of a functioning democracy.”
However, under Musk’s direction, the social media platform on December 15 purged several accounts controlled by high-profile journalists from institutions including CNN, the New York Times and the Washington Post. Accounts tracking the movements of Musk’s private flights were also suspended, as were those promoting the Mastodon social media platform, which has attracted many Twitter users following the billionaire’s acquisition. The CEO of Twitter denounced the previous “posting of my exact location in real time”.
Why have journalists had their Twitter accounts suspended? Please explain. And it had better be a GOOD explanation.
— Stephen King (@StephenKing) December 16, 2022
Why have the Twitter accounts of some journalists been suspended? Please explain it. And this had better be a GOOD explanation.
Musk had a net worth of more than $300 billion as of October 2021, before the Twitter acquisition, and around the same time, Tesla’s stock price hit an all-time high of $407.36 in November 2021. In about a year, the Bloomberg Billionaires Index showed the Tesla CEO had fallen to the second-richest person on the planet, with a reported net worth of $169 billion at press time.
As CEO, Musk oversaw a series of controversial decisions on Twitter that caused many in the business world to question his acumen. He fired many senior executives, including many members of the platform’s content moderation team, and attempted to charge users for the blue “verified” ticks, leading to many fake accounts with a veneer of legitimacy. The social network also experienced a spike in hate tweets and misinformation about vaccines, putting advertisers’ revenues at risk.
Twitter users appeared to be largely supportive of Fran Finney’s efforts to prove that the account was still active and beneficial to the crypto community. Former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey also intervened on the platform to express his surprise at the reactivation of the account.
“There should be a way to safeguard historically important accounts,” said Twitter user 0xAphelion on Hal Finney’s account. “But better to prevent.”
Hal Finney was one of the biggest names in the crypto space, having been one of the first people to reply to Satoshi’s post on the cypherpunks mailing list. He passed away from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis – ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease – in 2014 at the age of 58.
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