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Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

bloomberg.com

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Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#41

Post by Animats »

dockerd wrote: post #20

Meta didn't accept emergency request from police and needed county magistrate order to help assist in investigation. "Meta has a portal for police to file requests to preserve records of accounts connected to criminal investigations. Like other social media companies, it has to hold the records—including emails, IP addresses, message transcripts and general usage history—for 90 days. It only hands over user data if i…

Meta was correct. "Exigent circumstances" to the 4th amendment warrant requirement did not apply, because there was no known potential victim at risk. So the cops needed to have a judge sign a warrant. Didn't take long.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#42

Post by throehcifj »

wpietri wrote: post #40
throehcifj wrote: post #36

Why is it called "scam" and "fraud"? It is typical revenge porn, sexual abuse and distribution of child pornography. There is a strong network to support rape victims, and it should be used for such cases.

It is called a scam because that's what the perps are going for. Their goal is to extract money. From the article: "The price was $300. He transferred the money via Apple Cash and pleaded to be left alone. But it wasn’t enough. Now Dani wanted $800." Maybe you know different teenagers than me, but I'm not expecting that the boys described here would be big on joining a rape support group.

Intentions of attackers are irrelevant, important is what they do! Victims are not killing themselves over $300, but over revenge porn!

I would absolutely join rape support group, but there are none for men. Maybe the is the real problem. At least they should get break from school, or help with relocation!

And correct labeling would help with school bullies. Reposting some "scam" pictures has zero punishment, spreading revenge porn on other side...

Reposting dick pics of exes, or groups like "Are we dating the same guy?" are sadly way too common!

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#43

Post by wpietri »

throehcifj wrote: post #42
wpietri wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is called a scam because that's what the perps are going for. Their goal is to extract money. From the article: "The price was $300. He transferred the money via Apple Cash and pleaded to be left alone. But it wasn’t enough. Now Dani wanted $800." Maybe you know different teenagers than me, but I'm not expecting that the boys described here would be big on joining a rape support group.

Intentions of attackers are irrelevant, important is what they do! Victims are not killing themselves over $300, but over revenge porn! I would absolutely join rape support group, but there are none for men. Maybe the is the real problem. At least they should get break from school, or help with relocation! And correct labeling would help with school bullies. Reposting some "scam" pictures has zero punishment, spreadi…

It's true that scammers use many different techniques, and I agree that NCP is in play here. But something can be more than one thing at once. This is a scam.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#44

Post by nextlevelwizard »

bikemore wrote: post #28
hannofcart wrote: post #24

While my heart goes out to all the victims' families, what are platforms like Facebook supposed to do here? Are they supposed to monitor the content of the chats? Some would call that eavesdropping. The sad fact is that desperate people exist. And these desperate people are willing to do despicable things to make a buck.

If Facebook were at all a force for good in this world, maybe I'd agree with you. But given the litany of other social ills they are directly or indirectly responsible for, I'm fairly confident you could nuke them tomorrow and the world would be a better place. So "Facebook should abort itself" is one option.

And then people would move to yet another social media site and nothing changes

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#45

Post by nextlevelwizard »

thfuran wrote: post #21
CJefferson wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, maybe it’s time to consider that. Saying “oh well, let’s give up on laws because the internet is worldwide and unlimited” doesn’t feel like a good choice to me.

Shutting down all the roads because criminals use them doesn't really make sense. Does the internet equivalent?

I mean we do cut off entire countries and their citizens from global markets and from traveling when they do shit like invading their sovereign neighbors and that is completely fine and even desirable. Why can’t we (morally) cut them off also from infecting our Internet? Fuck them. Fix your country then come back and we will reevaluate.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#46

Post by gttalbot »

Why would Facebook not just block messages from Nigeria to rando North American towns at this point? Shouldn't the network analysis required to detect this sort of crime ring be a slam-dunk at this point? I don't get how this is still even possible.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#47

Post by throehcifj »

wpietri wrote: post #43
throehcifj wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intentions of attackers are irrelevant, important is what they do! Victims are not killing themselves over $300, but over revenge porn! I would absolutely join rape support group, but there are none for men. Maybe the is the real problem. At least they should get break from school, or help with relocation! And correct labeling would help with school bullies. Reposting some "scam" pictures has zero punishment, spreadi…

It's true that scammers use many different techniques, and I agree that NCP is in play here. But something can be more than one thing at once. This is a scam.

> But something can be more than one thing at once.

Perhaps it is scam and revenge porn at the same time! And $300 scam is the smaller part! There are many precedents, but with girls!

This tone policing "men can never be a victim of a sexual crime" is getting old.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#48

Post by wpietri »

throehcifj wrote: post #47
wpietri wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's true that scammers use many different techniques, and I agree that NCP is in play here. But something can be more than one thing at once. This is a scam.

> But something can be more than one thing at once. Perhaps it is scam and revenge porn at the same time! And $300 scam is the smaller part! There are many precedents, but with girls! This tone policing "men can never be a victim of a sexual crime" is getting old.

I'm not tone policing anything, bub. As Carrie Goldberg says, "NONCONSENSUAL PORNOGRAPHY IS SEXUAL ABUSE". [1] So I agree with that part.

But NCP is used in all sorts of ways. One of those ways, this particular way here, is as part of a scam. And I think it's important to keep that in mind because to be effective fighting crime, you have to understand it. Anti-scam education is also an important component of online safety training. So when you say, "Why is it called 'scam' and 'fraud'?" as if that were somehow incorrect, I'm going to explain why it's correct.

[1] https://www.cagoldberglaw.com/states-with-revenge-porn-laws/

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#49

Post by brnt »

jimbob45 wrote: post #35
HaZeust wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do we keep thinking that people will wise up to AI-generated content just because it'll eventually be mass-produced and anyone can do it? Anyone can write absolutely anything with little check and balance on substance, and MILLIONS still believe tabloids and headlines. We've been able to reliably edit photos/video/film for 80 years with an exponential increase in its efficiency within the last 30 - and we still h…

Robocalls aren’t effective anymore. Emails don’t do much except once in a great while. Mail hasn’t worked since the 80s. I have to imagine IM clients will lose their effectiveness for scamming the same as all the others.

Cant tell if sarcasm or...

All of those scams work perfectly fine, that's what they're still around. Money lost through scams is only increasing; it's a growth market.

Re: Scammers are targeting teenage boys on social media and driving some to suicide

#50

Post by Ekaros »

colechristensen wrote: post #18
thfuran wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What you're describing is the end of the internet.

It's really not. Facebook making money off of illegal activity conveniently hidden behind national borders is not the cornerstone of the Internet.

So then ban Facebook. Problem solved. Start advocating this in congress now.
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