Along with those being fooled there are many comments saying this is fake, AI trash and etc. That portion of the commenters are teaching the ignorant and soon no one will believe what they see on the Internet as real.

They already did. Certainly on the backend. For a while they were surfacing it, but I think it's gone again. But Meta is definitely onto this.

Why do HN commenters all act like they're in the top 1% of intellectuals

It was very convincing. We thought it was a YouTube stream of the Starship launch. It paused with 40 seconds remaining, and "Musk" came on offering to reward those who support innovation and technology (BTC, in this case). All info here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lRbApgKT4U95zN0AYsPQqsLR...

Because it isn't worth real Elon's time to run these scams.

I am flabbergasted that you both get scammed. I would understand if this was two years ago, but now? Do people really not know about these scams? I can already see down votes coming for victim blaming, but this is to me really shocking. Notice that there isn't "tell hn: don't get scammed by deep fake crypto Elon" because people who usually posts also consider this general knowledge. That's why it's so effective I guess. In a similar manner there will never be "tell hn: don't drink acid it will burn your intestines", the danger is so obvious that nobody feels the need to post it and because nobody is posting it, people get scammed. I don't know what is the solution to that. How should you tell people what everybody should be already knowing?

I remember being on a machining workshop and he was telling such an obvious things. Obvious things are obvious until they aren't, and then somebody gets hurt.

Yes, this is the exact same scam.

That’s what they said : they have been scammed !

Yeah, here it is, along with screenshots. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lRbApgKT4U95zN0AYsPQqsLR...

I think the comment is a joke. Their bio is satirical at least :)

Well just go on this guy's lawn and you will find your answer lol

I guess it was something like [0] The Nigerian prince is now a deep fake Elon but the concept is the same. You need to send some money to get way more back.

[0]: https://www.ncsc.admin.ch/ncsc/en/home/aktuell/im-fokus/2023...

There are a lot of people on the internet, and every individual on the internet is in a unique situation. Chances are some of them are very likely to be persuaded by a scam which seems obvious to you.

Parent’s story is very believable, even if parent made this particular story up (which I personally don‘t think is the case) this has probably happened to somebody.

Not satire. He made a big speech about rewarding those who invested early in tech to move humanity forward and the benefits of the blockchain. It was extremely convincing. Three college grads and a medical doctor were all convinced.

As always, it is the replies that make it worth it. GopherGeyser strikes again!

Why would anyone give them any money AT ALL?

It's not like they're poor or struggling.

Am I missing something?

it requires zero vigilance if you dont play the game.

My mind is blown that people would engage in it at all, let alone need to be "vigilant". Amazing.

Yes, more than one safety mechanism failed. Coinbase actually flagged the transaction, but I was so desperate to get it to go through, I went through their facial validation process to expedite the transaction. If I hadn't for just a couple more minutes, I'd have realized it was a scam.

I think the biggest failure is on the part of the companies hosting these streams.

Its been a while, but I remember seeing streams for Elon offering to "double your bitcoin" and the reasoning was he wanted to increase the adoption and load test the network. Just send some bitcoin to some address and he will send it back double!

But the thing was it was on youtube. Hosted on an imposter Tesla page. The stream had been going on for hours and had over ten thousand people watching live. If you searched "Elon Musk Bitcoin" During the stream on Google, Google actually pushed that video as the first result.

Say what you want about the victims of the scam, but I think it should be pretty easy for youtube or other streaming companies to have a simple rule to simply filter all live streams with Elon Musk + (Crypto|BTC|etc) in the title and be able to filter all youtube pages with "Tesla" "SpaceX" etc in the title.

That's the sort of statement that remains extremely rude even if you try and prefix it with "I don't mean to be rude".

I'm pretty successful with an above average IQ. It was very convincing, along with three other college grads (one a medical doctor).

You're paying too much for your bridges man. Who's your bridge guy?

Was the bridge built by a genius like Elon though?

He would sell tunnels, not bridges!

I don't think he's the gullible one, check their bio ;)

Come on, don't be mean. Imagine saying this in person to someone who just told you they got scammed. "You're just extremely gullible" is just so mean...show some empathy.