Scammers abusing falsified Twitter DMCA takedown requests to suspend artist accounts working under pseudonyms to doxx them, demand ransom

[doomfest]

Summary

I'm a new user and I apologize if this is against the rules / too offtopic. I'm from the art community on Twitter (and a LTT watcher since 2015). I am hoping letting a community outside my niche know about this loophole around Twitter / DMCA law/implementation would help spur Twitter into actually doing something about it. Recently a number of artist accounts (some of them my friends & mutuals) operating under pseudonyms have gotten their accounts suspended from Twitter's automatic DMCA takedown system from scammer(s) filing multiple falsified DMCA claims against a single account. 

 

Quotes

Quote

A number of artists are currently being attacked by false DMCA claims in an attempt to dox them. Several have had their accounts suspended, including Yueko in the last few minutes. DO NOT give out your personal info in the counter claim

Quote

Yueko: The person responsible has admitted to using a bot and made threats ON twitter to myself and 2 other artists affected. Its really hilarious because its likely this is just some lowlife wannabe 'hacker' trying to be edgy- but twitter's system is so broken that it facilitates this.

If you know the account, don't give them attention or link it here because that's what they want. Its just really laughable how low-effort and transparent this whole thing has been but Twitter still allows it to happen and affect artists who depend on their platforms

My thoughts

I believe this has implications far outside the art community, and directly shows the shortcomings of our dated DMCA laws, which are originally meant to protect creators from bad actors infringing upon the rights to their work.

 

The implementation of these laws is having the opposite effect, and doesn't necessarily only affect artists on Twitter, who can have a significant chunk of their livelihood come from it. Not every account attacked has been suspended, but Twitter support has been completely unhelpful so far, based on what Yueko has to say on her new alt account.

 

Edit 1: I've been informed by one of the replies that abusing DMCA law isn't new; what's particularly frustrating about this is twitter's borderline malicious levels of negligence when handling the counterclaim. Yueko has had her counterclaim rejected when even basic levels of investigation by twitter into this should make it very clear it's a DMCA troll. Some accounts have been suspended for months; it's not known when / if they will ever return.

 

Sources

https://twitter.com/MattikarpArt/status/1390975971763703808

 

 

https://twitter.com/yueko___/status/1391474502186377217

 

[Fasauceome]

The sad thing is I'm not surprised

[da na]

1 minute ago, Fasauceome said:

The sad thing is I'm not surprised

I was literally about to say that

[Radium_Angel]

38 minutes ago, doomfest said:

dated DMCA laws

They've been abused since their creation.

They were worded vaguely (poorly, from our POV) on purpose. Just like the RICO laws, and the PATRIOT act and a whole host of other broad sweeping laws. But we wont go there on this forum.

[TetraSky]

I've seen them post about it on Twitter.

The fact that there's no way to appeal it, without providing your info to the scammers is deplorable.

It shouldn't be this hard to find out if the art you've made, is yours or someone else's. It's too easy to abuse the DMCA on these big platforms, because they just let every notices through without actually verifying anything. A reform is more than needed.

[Lurick]

Just now, TetraSky said:

I've seen them post about it on Twitter.

The fact that there's no way to appeal it, without providing your info to the scammers is deplorable.

It shouldn't be this hard to find out if the art you've made, is yours or someone else's. It's to easy to abuse the DMCA on these big platforms, because they just let every notices through without actually verifying anything.

They let the notices through because if they didn't them the RIAA/MPAA/etc would be screaming bloody murder about how unfair they are to them and how they enjoy helping piracy and that they missed out on $0.00000001 one time and need that money or some starving artist they (RIAA/MPAA/etc) screwed over might realize how scummy their practices are.

[Touch My Hamm]

Honestly I hate Twitter and believe its one of the lowest forms of communication. I am not surprised people taking advantage of DMCA, this is done on all social media platforms tbh where sites are so scared they would rather take videos/content down before any burden of proof is done. 

[Quackers101]

Abusing the system, just like on youtube.

Been done for years, not sure if you would call this thread more personal.

While it would be nice to show all exploits/abuses and how to deal with them.

[Mark Kaine]

The bad thing about this is that google, twitter, etc make it far too easy to get info nobody should easily get. I just recently learned my email is visible on Google and it cant be turned off...  like why?

 

imo these services all needed to get shut down until they get their act together, especially regarding privacy and other personal rights.

 

 

[AndreiArgeanu]

Just now, Quackers101 said:

Abusing the system, just like on youtube.

Well, it's not exactly like on YouTube. With this exploit it looks like any hillbilly could use it while I don't believe a similar exploit exists on YouTube. Sure there's definitely similar issues that do happen on YouTube, but there's usually a sizeable company behind it that's fucking over a creator over a small group or even a single person in the case of twitter.

[YellowJersey]

The human race is truly nature's greatest mistake.

[Zodiark1593]

29 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

The bad thing about this is that google, twitter, etc make it far too easy to get info nobody should easily get. I just recently learned my email is visible on Google and it cant be turned off...  like why?

 

imo these services all needed to get shut down until they get their act together, especially regarding privacy and other personal rights.

 

 

Not quite sure how such a shut down could be carried out with a bare minimum of collateral damage/inconvenience. 

[StDragon]

 

 

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, doomfest said:

Summary

I'm a new user and I apologize if this is against the rules / too offtopic. I'm from the art community on Twitter (and a LTT watcher since 2015). I am hoping letting a community outside my niche know about this loophole around Twitter / DMCA law/implementation would help spur Twitter into actually doing something about it. Recently a number of artist accounts (some of them my friends & mutuals) operating under pseudonyms have gotten their accounts suspended from Twitter's automatic DMCA takedown system from scammer(s) filing multiple falsified DMCA claims against a single account. 

 

Quotes

My thoughts

I believe this has implications far outside the art community, and directly shows the shortcomings of our dated DMCA laws, which are originally meant to protect creators from bad actors infringing upon the rights to their work.

 

The implementation of these laws is having the opposite effect, and doesn't necessarily only affect artists on Twitter, who can have a significant chunk of their livelihood come from it. Not every account attacked has been suspended, but Twitter support has been completely unhelpful so far, based on what Yueko has to say on her new alt account.

 

Sources

https://twitter.com/MattikarpArt/status/1390975971763703808

 

 

https://twitter.com/yueko___/status/1391474502186377217

 

The detail missing from this story is that the one doing it is blackmailing them for ransoms. This is the entire problem created when a company isn't permitted to look at evidence from off-site.

 

Like I remember back with (auction site), most stuff that came in under infringement, was just "take it down", it was all human reviewed, but only like 3 seconds was really needed to take it down, because stolen images was usually enough to take things down. All those drop-shipper chinese counterfeits love claiming that their images were stolen when they all stole the images from the authentic source.

 

So if this process at twitter has no human review, that's a problem worse than youtube's. Youtube at least now requires some effort by the one filing it if they aren't trusted (though many rights agencies shotgun claims anyway.) Twitter, gets a weird pass on this because neither the image or video upload process really permits abuse in the first place, so someone filing a DMCA on twitter is either a troll, or doesn't know how Twitter works. You want "fake" brands and those impersonating you to be removed, but it's difficult for some outsourcer who doesn't live in the country, let alone part of the community to know the difference between "yes this is funny" and "no this is clearly harassment"

 

I've seen at least three people I know on twitter get suspended for what seems like arbitrary claims that anyone who actually followed the account would have seen as them just doing their "bit" and not some greater threat.

 

[suicidalfranco]

Don't do business with twitter.

Build your own site

 

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[poochyena]

8 hours ago, doomfest said:

directly shows the shortcomings of our dated DMCA laws

Yep, its almost entirely the US copyright laws, not *too* much twitter can do, but they could possibly make some changes? Honestly, twitter, youtube, and other tech giants just need to come together and work out new copyright laws to propose to congress and use their power to get things changed for the better. Companies hate it just as much as we do. They don't want to ban people for no reason, removing content from their site.

6 hours ago, GodSeph said:

Honestly I hate Twitter and believe its one of the lowest forms of communication.

Seriously? Its perfectly fine as a communication tool.

[Techstorm970]

9 minutes ago, poochyena said:

Seriously? Its perfectly fine as a communication tool.

Honestly, Twitter is MEANT to be a communication tool.  Of course, that's not how a lot of people use it; the bad stories you hear about are the people using it as a Facebook alternative, which it is AWFUL for.

 

On the same hand, I don't think Twitter is the best communication tool.  Discord, Whatsapp, and Snapchat definitely have them beat, along with more tools that I'm not thinking of right now.

 

Twitter as an information broadcasting tool?  Eh...it's okay.  There are plenty of other things I'd prefer to use for broadcasting, as well.

[poochyena]

1 hour ago, Techstorm970 said:

I don't think Twitter is the best communication tool.  Discord, Whatsapp, and Snapchat definitely have them beat

but those are all private chats. What better platform is there to announce I have a new product on my website?

1 hour ago, Techstorm970 said:

There are plenty of other things I'd prefer to use for broadcasting, as well.

I honestly can't think of any besides pillowfort, but its a small site right now.

[MultiGamerClub]

DMCA being abused by bots? Oh that doesnt sound good.. But then again twitter starts to remind me on how valve solves cheats.. By doing absolutely nothing.

[Brooksie359]

5 hours ago, poochyena said:

Yep, its almost entirely the US copyright laws, not *too* much twitter can do, but they could possibly make some changes? Honestly, twitter, youtube, and other tech giants just need to come together and work out new copyright laws to propose to congress and use their power to get things changed for the better. Companies hate it just as much as we do. They don't want to ban people for no reason, removing content from their site.

Seriously? Its perfectly fine as a communication tool.

Twitter is a fine communication tool if used correctly but also a horrible one if used incorrectly. For conversations its pretty horrible imo. If its for announcements or sending a simple message to followers then its very effective. 

[Quackers101]

2 hours ago, Brooksie359 said:

Twitter is a fine communication tool if used correctly but also a horrible one if used incorrectly. For conversations its pretty horrible imo. If its for announcements or sending a simple message to followers then its very effective. 

yes, it can be very nice if you only used it for more useful accounts and quick information about an event or so.

But else, it's a place to just spread toxic waste, so if you know what you are looking for it might do good, rather than be the swamp it can be like.

[rcmaehl]

Unfortunately, since most online services require real name/personal details for DMCA counters the only way around this is to have a lawyer file it on your behalf. Not really a twitter exclusive problem. Just copyright being broken in general

 

 

[poochyena]

5 hours ago, Quackers101 said:

But else, it's a place to just spread toxic waste, so if you know what you are looking for it might do good, rather than be the swamp it can be like.

that describes literally every place in the world and on the internet

[Middcore]

Ah, the DMCA, the gift that keeps on giving.