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
Yeah, the other day I saw a lot of posts like “I am from palestine, my home is destroyed please donate to help”… Spam is probably the significant problem on fedi
Funnily enough, I haven’t seen many instances delicated to just spam, like there was conerns about. Its mostly from .world or mastodon.social
I would just reply with a guide to shoplifting 😉
At the beginning of the pan, someone was selling nudes to cover expenses. I think I sent twenty bucks because I could and she was cute and whatever. But then the person started messaging me about trying to get more money (for her and her sister) and it just felt like a scam and I became very cynical about it.
Btw, I slept funny last night and I have a neck cramp. Please send money. /s
POLICE! POLICE! PLEASE HELP!
I SAW A HOMELESS PERSON!!! THEY WERE ASKING FOR MONEY
PLEASE REMOVE THESE EYESORES
This is why I turn off Google spam filtering. My attention is worth nothing so everyone who can message me should be able to.
Imagine being so dead inside that automated emails and human beings occupy the same part of your mind
Imagine being so naive that you think that’s a real person.
But if we’re not being snarky for a moment… It’s trivially easy to create a bot to do exactly what this person is doing. Spam others with begging for money and a bunch of sob stories.
That’s not mutual aid that’s charity. Mutual aid is mutually beneficial to both parties.
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.
…
What kind of friend are we talking about?
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.
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.
I don’t think mutual aid can work well like that on the internet. Works great in person, works OK for GoFundMe-type stuff like “I had something happen to me that will take a lot of money to fix”. Too easy to scam and grift for small stuff like this though, where for all you know they’re just a very clever dog on the internet.
Charity is not the same as mutual aid anyways, even though I have also seen “mutual aid” requests on the Fediverse that were clearly asking for charity.
How would you differentiate the two?
Can you just tell me lmao i dont wanna read an essay
Mutual aide is mutual
The title already gives it away 😜
it doesnt and its why i asked lol then i opened the link and saw its over 10 paragraphs
Mutual aid is a form of [collaborative] political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable.
Charity comes with eligibility requirements that relate to these moral frameworks of deservingness, such as sobriety, piety, curfews, participation in job training or parenting courses, cooperation with the police, or identifying the paternity of children.
Nonprofitization has reproduced antidemocratic, racist, and colonial relationships between the winners and losers of extractive, exploitative economic arrangements.Well you asked a question with a complicated answer. Dean Spade is a prolific and respected writer and organizer, and his thoughts on the matter are relatively concise compared to the volumes upon volumes written by his predecessors in anarchist thought.
im curious about they differentiate it themselves as a person not how an academic defines it.
I for one am not willing to feed a milk-bone addiction, no matter how good a boy he is.
I don’t think mutual aid can work well like that on the internet. Works great in person,
That can be an incredibly privileged position to be in to say. Some people are in situations so bad in their meatspace life that “the random internet” is actually more trustworthy.
It might be better for them but it’s not better for the internet strangers, now there is an unknown beggar in their space.
i had helped 2 people through Mastodon who seemed to genuinely need it on Mastodon a few months ago. I think it is nice to know that I can help people who need and they might help in my time of need.It is functional.
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]
I only ever got one. I feel so rejected!
😭 I didn’t get any. Why don’t Polish egirls like me?
I got one about an hour after I made my Mastodon account. found me pretty fucking fast.
Hi, I’m
Nicolewizardbeard! I’m aproudaromaticPolishAbyssalgirltube sock with googly eyes fromTorontothe space between your walls (29 y/o50 ft)I’m currently taking the
pre-health sciences program at George Brown Collegesocks from your dryer hoping toget into the medical fieldfind 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.
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.
Lol, comments in this thread forgot the ‘mutual’ part of ‘mutual aid’ and miss the point of this post (scams in mutual aid groups)
If you think mutual aid is a one-way street (/ don’t benefit from it), is not for you, block and move on
“Mutual aid”? Is that what scammers are calling it now? What exactly is “mutual” about this interaction?
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with creating a community where people who are struggling financially can ask for help or plug their GoFundMe or whatever, but allowing these guys to essentially cold call individuals with DMs/Mentions is unacceptable.
There is an entire sub on here somewhere that is only for mutual aid. The sob stories in there are batshit crazy.
I just mute all of them.
It may be my “3rd world syndrome” but to me, someone with internet access and a social media account who post regularly, is not in poverty. More likely a spambot.
My local beggar, in contrast, is a sincere person who tells me that he just want some cheap boxed wine or something to smoke. Refuses food or any kind of help. Cash only.
Not trying to change your mind on giving money to internet grifters but having a cell phone is pretty much a basic tool of survival these days even if you’re destitute. Phones more than a couple years old are basically e-waste and cost nothing or are donated/trashed all the time. Even a WiFi only phone can be the best tool someone has to find shelter, food and get important weather updates.
Even if it’s a recent phone, new flagship phones cost less than a month’s rent in many places. It’s not like phones are unattainable for homeless people.
When I was homeless, I had a cell phone. It’s pretty hard to find work without one. And I don’t know if it’s still the case, but at that time if you are on any sort of government assistance you could get a phone paid for.
As it is really difficult to get out of poverty without one.
That sad, I don’t hand out money on lemmy. There are folks in my community I know need help too.
I mean, I know phones can be cheap or donated. And I also know that homeless people may have possessions that some consider “expensive”. It’s not that uncommon.
But constant internet connection needs monthly payments that, in my very personal and particular mindset, are not really compatible with “I’m a beggar. I need help”.
Having knowledge of the Fediverse it’s too niche for me, and the stories like “I can’t pay groceries!” almost every week are unlikely in a place where most of folks are tech workers. My spam-meter says that probably some people out there found the #mutualaid hashtag and are making some fake profiles and fake stories.
The plans can be super cheap compared to food and housing. A pretty poor person can still have consistent Internet now.
It’s not the affordability that makes these things almost certainly a scam, but they pretty much are almost certainly a scam anyway.
you can find plans for $15/mo. it’s not unreasonable for homeless people today to have a cell phone. even homies in prison have tiktoks.
Again, the phone and the service, at least, when I was homeless in 2019, was covered along with other social services such as SNAP and Medicaid.
And again, I completely agree about not handing money out online. Just disagreeing about homeless folks having accessibility to a phone or the internet. And Public libraries or anywhere with wifi (if you have a phone) are other options.
it may be like that in the “third world”, but in western countries at least, if you don’t have a cell phone you are pretty much actively discriminated against. many government programs, not to mention utilities, require the use of a smartphone app. for example, my electric company requires one, as does my internet company. you can’t even begin service with my ISP if you don’t have an app.
if you live in the US, you’ll find it very difficult to even find a job without a cell phone, as most unemployment programs or job listings are done through apps these days. so the first thing any homeless person needs to acquire, is internet access and social media.
