X has had a lot of problems with banning accounts for falsely claiming suspicious activity after its AI took over moderation on the site. However, now that an account has been legitimately hacked, comic artist Billy Tucci finds himself with zero recourse as his hackers antagonize and blackmail him.
Billy Tucci is a legendary comic artist, devout catholic, and creator of the pop culture sensation, Shi. He’s been well known in independent comic circles for decades for his great work and lately, incredible success in the crowdfunding spaces.
It began on April 1st, an auspicious day for getting an account hacked, since people might believe it’s an April Fool’s prank. However, Tucci’s account began sending out suspicious messages to mutuals:
Since Tucci is active in the podcasting world, doing livestreams for his books and the comic industry, it seems like a reasonable ask, though Tucci is not known to speak in emojis as a rule. The link goes to a site that is clearly a phishing scam, prompting people to put in their passwords for various socials to vote.
Tucci has an alt account as Billy_Tucci on X and posted about how he’s attempted to contact support to no avail:
The screen shot shows clearly that they got his phone number in an attempt to extort him:
Not only that, but soon after, the hackers followed his new account from his main to add insult to injury:
Soon after Tucci began complaining about it on X, the main account then blocked his new one to try to dampen his reach:
This is clearly beyond any ordinary scam as it’s gone to a point where it’s malicious.
This is particularly harmful to a creator as it hurts the ability for someone like Tucci to reach his audience and update them on new books and projects. Fandom Pulse is boosting the signal in hopes his account gets restored.
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I remember seeing ads for Shi back Ye Olden Dayes. The creator may be devout; is the comic itself worthy of addition to the "based" list?
The hackers are clearly evil Woke fanatics, who want to ruin Billy Tucci’s life.