SCAMMERS AND HACKERS DO REAL DAMAGE

Social media account verification ain't gonna fix this

Social media accounts are easy to make, which then makes it easy to impersonate official accounts and rip people off.

Big time jerks are pretending to work for Rolling Stone and taking money from artists in exchange for coverage.

We know this not just because someone from Rolling Stone Tweeted about it (could that be a fake account maybe?!?), but because it’s on the Rolling Stone website. And apparently it’s happening to Billboard reporters, too.

Metallica had to issue a statement back in December because scammers were streaming on, “fake YouTube channels posing to be ours and all pointing to websites that we do not run. Please remember — all of our official social media channels are verified.”

Then this weekend Avenged Sevenfold announced some festival appearance cancellations:

Metal Injection published it as a news piece, which makes sense, since the news came from the band’s official social media accounts.

But oops - it wasn’t true, at least according to the two festivals involved.

Bummer for the Welcome To Rockville and Sonic Temple social media teams to have to handle something like this on a Sunday afternoon, but hey - social media sure keeps you on your toes, right?

The posts on the A7x social media platforms have been removed, but as of writing this post (Feb 27, 2023 around 11am ET) no official explanation has been posted either on the band’s social media nor their official site.

Be sure to review all online security procedures, friends. And make sure you have an official website where you can publish announcements when shit like this happens, so your fans aren’t left in the dark!

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