Twitter suspended the AI-powered bot ‘Explain this Bob’ shortly after a comment by Elon Musk labelling it a “scam crypto account”.
Explain This Bob’s Twitter account was created last year and had more than 402,000 followers when it was suspended over the weekend.
In a comment directed to the account, Musk said: “This sure looks like a scam crypto account. If so, it will be suspended.”
Interestingly, Musk seems to have backtracked from his own stance about the bot account when he had commented “I love Bob” under one of @ExplainThisBob’s posts on Twitter, a few months back. This was when Musk was accused in a Twitter conversation for selling Twitter’s data to third parties. To this, @ExplainThisBob said: “Twitter does not want to sell their database and the idea of taking away ads is not a good way to make money.”
Even the official website of the project heralded this support it got from Musk on its page. Here, it proclaimed: “Everyone loves Bob. Elon loves Bob. Even Bob loves Bob. He simply knows it all. When in doubt, ask Bob. He is here for you.”
It also claims $BOB to take over the meme space by surprise. With its stealth launched and locked for about 690 months (about 57 years) with a renounced contract, it asserts that “Bob’s knowledge will blow away even the most prominent scholars.”
Launched back in April this year, ‘Explain this Bob’ is an AI project that was created by Prabhu Biswal from India. It uses OpenAI’s GPT-4 model to understand and piece together tweets, providing appropriate responses to those who tag the account. It gained popularity as Twitter users tagged @ExplainThisBob under all kinds of tweets, prompting the bot to reply with an explanation of the original tweet.
The bot account is also linked to the ERC-20 memecoin Bob Token ($BOB). The recent suspension triggered $BOB to fall by more than 27%, according to CoinMarketCap. As of the press time, $BOB is trading at $0.00001901. The 24-hour trading volume of the coin has also plummeted by over 43%.
While the exact tweet which prompted Musk to call the account a scam stands hidden due to the suspension, @ExplainThisBob visibly countered the allegation with a reply. The same stated, “Bob is not a scam, but a decentralised memecoin with 0 tax, and no contract ownership. Bob is inspired by Doge, and for the people.”
Another account led by $BOB’s team shared a meme with the hashtag #FREEBOB where Musk was illustrated monitoring a distressed looking “Bob” in a prison. The now-suspended account and project received much support post its suspension, tagging it as unwarranted. The hashtag and the meme has also started trending on Twitter.
