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Mutual aid spam is becoming a problem on the Fediverse.
And to be sure, I'm not against mutual aid. What I am against is spam.
This person has not verified who she is -- or even if the profile picture is hers. Additional research on her name states she is a scammer with a record of grifting. I am therefore skeptical that any donations will help anyone in need.
Folks, please be cautious with mutual aid requests. Yes, people sometimes need help. But people also lie.
@fediverse@lemmy.world
@fediverse @atomicpoet Yep! Majority of them are questionable, even those who claim they were "manually" verified by some supposedly "well-known" person. Even in the ATmosphere network, it's the same.
That's not mutual aid that's charity. Mutual aid is mutually beneficial to both parties.
This is nothing, on hexbear there's a person pretending to be like half a dozen different Palestinians with different fraudulent GoFundMe. They cook up a new persona like every other week using pictures they scrape from the media and then run it through an AI filter.
Same on Bluesky. And they are everywhere. Couple of years ago some accounts did this multiple times on Imgur. Even today occasionally some pop up again, but now the users are quick to call them out…with the admins doing jack shit. Which is classic for that site.
When coming across a sob story my knee jerk reaction is “bullshit”. If you want to give money to charity, do so through a reputable organisation. And don’t trust any rando on the internet.
People do solicit donations, as on just about every public forum. I really wouldn't call it a problem on lemmy at this point, but a rule against it except in communities where it's encouraged wouldn't be a terrible idea. Somebody who is interested in doing it could start a Please Help community specifically for these requests, requiring some form of verification. Seems like running it could turn into a lot of work tho.
Yep I've already gotten a couple messages like this with an image of a random lady attached:
Hi, I’m Nicole! I’m a proud Polish girl from Toronto (29 y/o)
I’m currently taking the pre-health sciences program at George Brown College hoping to get into the medical field someday!
You can add me on Friendica: [REDACTED]
and join my discord here: [REDACTED]
Hi, I'm ~~Nicole~~ wizardbeard! I'm a ~~proud~~ aromatic ~~Polish~~ Abyssal ~~girl~~ tube sock with googly eyes from ~~Toronto~~ the space between your walls (~~29 y/o~~ 50 ft)
I’m currently taking the ~~pre-health sciences program at George Brown College~~ socks from your dryer hoping to ~~get into the medical field~~ find a broodmother for the spawn that will form the ranks of my holy army someday!
You can't add me on Friendica. It's far too late for that. Far far too late for anyone to do anything to stop this.
Your socks may be returned to you but they may never be the same.
I only ever got one. I feel so rejected!
I got one about an hour after I made my Mastodon account. found me pretty fucking fast.
😭 I didn't get any. Why don't Polish egirls like me?
@atomicpoet @fediverse THX for putting this clearly on the table, I had this scepticism for some time already ...
@regineheidorn @fediverse Yeah, people I know boosted her messages—which implies they may have given her money. The thing is, that grifter’s success is going to attract other grifters if this problem isn’t addressed.
I was just offered 500$ to be someone's friend. Of course, I refused - my friendship is worth much more than that!
But it's... concerning that we've got this sudden spike in spam.
Tell them I'll do it for $495
I’ll be their mate if they pay me £400.
The great thing about the fediverse is that it is harder to censor: as long as you find one instance where you can publish some information, you can publish it.
The bad thing about the fediverse is that it is also harder to moderate: as long as a spammer or troll finds one instance from which they can send unwanted messages, they will be able to send them.
In the long run, whitelisting may become the norm for federation instead of blacklisting.
@fediverse@lemmy.world
Whoa, is this from Mastodon?
@Feathercrown@lemmy.world No, this account is specifically from Akkoma. I have also submitted posts from my Pixelfed account.
I can submit a post to Lemmy by mentioning the community handle in my post. Such is the magic of the Fediverse.
Who is seriously stupid enough to fall for this?
My cat just died chewing through the power cable on my graphics card so I need a new 5090, please help brother
I can mail you a brand new cat. Good enough?
Dear brother in Christ I appreciate your generosity, is it a Siamese cat? I have allergies and the graphics card helps to clear the hair.
Thankfully that would almost certainly be a scam in my country and many others.
I am an asthmatic. Well controlled by a thrice daily cocktail of medicines. All free at the point of need. Paid for by our taxes.
The true scandal is the countries that make this plea possible.
whatever country you live in, it's already better than the US.
Was that a PM or a post?
I blocked MutualAid-related tags months ago because there is only so much begging and sob stories that a person can take.
I feel sorry for people who have problems and situations so desperate that they feel the best way to fix them is asking random people on the internet for money, but I just don't know if I can trust them and I absolutely know I can't help everyone.
Don't boost it. If it violates your instance's rules (e.g. it's a scam), report it. Unfollow people that boost it. Mute/block the poster or their content.
I don't mind seeing it, and I don't think it is a problem (yet).
Agree that caution is warranted for any request of funds, whatever the requestor wants to call it.