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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

#81

Post by DoreenMichele »

pflenker wrote: post #80
DoreenMichele wrote: post #51

Some thoughts I've had for years: A. My understanding is an underage teen who takes a nude selfie and sends it can be charged with distributing "child porn." This is a serious problem and should not be true. If other people forward it, they should be charged, but a teenager should not get in legal trouble for making a nude selfie and sending it privately. B. We need to culturally get over a lot of our hangups about c…

> If other people forward it, they should be charged It’s more complicated than that. Due to a new law in Germany, a teacher getting to know that these images are floating around and forwarding them to the respective parent could be charged for distributing child porn.

I'm actually ok with that. I see no reason why the teacher can't simply advise the parent this is happening without forwarding nudes of their teen to the parent.

I don't actually want to see my sons naked, thanks. They hit puberty, suddenly discovered the concept of privacy and I have no idea what their private parts look like.

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

#82

Post by BlackFly »

thrownaway561 wrote: post #13
colechristensen wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure it is. If a country can’t find and enforce a law or extradite someone for doing such a thing, order the carrier of the extortion messages to block the entire country or charge the message carrier itself, especially if minors are involved. Like if Facebook is being a safe haven for Nigerian extortionists, either they block Nigeria or Australia blocks Facebook.

if they do that they will just use VPNs. you can't stop this no matter what, you just have to educate people and hope they don't fall victim.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that a teenager that is willing to invest time into setting up a VPN so that they can talk to Nigerians probably isn't the sort of teenager to have this kind of problem.

We let people fly to countries without extradition orders. VPNs can be seen just like that: crossing the digital border. But for a company operating in a nation, it makes sense to impose regulation.

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

#83

Post by TeMPOraL »

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.

> Are they supposed to monitor the content of the chats? Some would call that eavesdropping.

FWIW, if the goal is to detect potential scam/abuse scenarios and offer help, then nowadays, they could train a ML classifier and have it run locally. If the conversation gets classified as highly suspect, the app could pop up some "this looks suspect, if you need help press HERE to share the conversation with us" warning. Privacy concerns would go away entirely, if nothing is actually reported to the mothership until the user specifically reports a conversation.

There's only so much they can do for users behind their backs, and a lot of that is undesirable unless you trust the company to be benevolent; local classifiers popping up recommendations could, however, help users help themselves.

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

#84

Post by timeon »

solumunus wrote: post #32
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…

You say that but I’ve yet to see an AI deep fake have any real impact so far. At least in the west, the political ones I’ve seen really haven’t got much traction and were quickly dismissed by the mainstream. Sure, there will always be idiots on the fringe who will believe anything that aligns with their current beliefs, there’s little we can do about that, but so far I’m surprised there hasn’t been an AI deepfake tha…

Small country, but it has already started: https://www.wired.com/story/slovakias-election-deepfakes-sho...

It was shared on social media just before elections during 'moratorium' [0]. There was no time or place to dismiss it by mainstream.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Election_silence

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

#85

Post by defrost »

solumunus wrote: post #32
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…

You say that but I’ve yet to see an AI deep fake have any real impact so far. At least in the west, the political ones I’ve seen really haven’t got much traction and were quickly dismissed by the mainstream. Sure, there will always be idiots on the fringe who will believe anything that aligns with their current beliefs, there’s little we can do about that, but so far I’m surprised there hasn’t been an AI deepfake tha…

Many people have been taken in by "famous billionaire endorses bullshit investment" deepfakes, whether it's Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, or Australia's Twiggy Forrest, Gina Rinehart etc.

The scams are real, the victims are real, it's in the global "west" and sorely under reported and the conveyors (Facebook, Twitter, etc) have washed their hands of dealing with it:

eg.

Forrest's Facebook fight dropped by Australian prosecutors https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/forres...

    Andrew Forrest’s legal battle to hold social media giant Meta to account over the proliferation of scam ads using his likeness on Facebook has been dealt a major blow.
Australian victim of fraud syndicate advertising on Facebook on a mission to stop others being burned https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-15/australians-falling-f...

The realism of deepfake video with real known public figures apparently endorsing investments as "safe" is another level past Nigerian prince scams.

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

#86

Post by TeMPOraL »

nextlevelwizard wrote: post #45
thfuran wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

It's actually not completely fine. Sanctions are effectively an act of war, just instead of shooting people and risking your own troops, you have your enemy's civilian population starve and shoot each other. This can be justified in some situations, possibly like the one you refer to; but it's definitely not an action to take lightly.

Ironically, in the originally proposed case of blocking Facebook, this is a bit of a "cut off your nose to spite your face" situation. How many small and medium businesses rely on Facebook as their main, or only, customer acquisition, communication and/or sales channel? For many countries, banning Facebook out of the blue would cause some serious economic issues and lead to plenty of actual suffering of innocent people.

(And yes, businesses will adapt, but let's not forget that adaptation in nature only ever means that the survivors of a mass die-off have more resources to use to bounce back. And it's the "die-off" part that's actually the necessary part.)

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

#87

Post by brnt »

jajko wrote: post #75
DoreenMichele wrote: post #51

Some thoughts I've had for years: A. My understanding is an underage teen who takes a nude selfie and sends it can be charged with distributing "child porn." This is a serious problem and should not be true. If other people forward it, they should be charged, but a teenager should not get in legal trouble for making a nude selfie and sending it privately. B. We need to culturally get over a lot of our hangups about c…

You write church, but it should be parents. Remember those days when parents were held responsible for their kids, how they behave, and whom they become in adult life? They (us) don't have full control in later teens, but everything leading up to it, mostly yes. But for every parent I see raising kids the hard way (tons of time spent together consistently every day, being a positive role model, motivating and support…

> Remember those days when parents were held responsible for their kids,

That idea is pure revisionism coming from individualist ideology.

In 'those' days, everybody raised everyone. 'It takes a village' and all that. Check any actual scientific research on the matter.

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

#88

Post by timeon »

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?

Roads are not the topic in here. Analogies are not arguments.

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

#89

Post by jpsouth »

DoreenMichele wrote: post #81
pflenker wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If other people forward it, they should be charged It’s more complicated than that. Due to a new law in Germany, a teacher getting to know that these images are floating around and forwarding them to the respective parent could be charged for distributing child porn.

I'm actually ok with that. I see no reason why the teacher can't simply advise the parent this is happening without forwarding nudes of their teen to the parent. I don't actually want to see my sons naked, thanks. They hit puberty, suddenly discovered the concept of privacy and I have no idea what their private parts look like.

Strong agree on the advising of such matters, as for forwarding, how the hell would a teacher have access to the image to forward to the parents?

That’s an insane overreach which could easily lead to abuse, they shouldn’t be accessing children’s phones, especially under the premise of ‘I need that image for safeguarding purposes’ - absolutely fucking not.

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

#90

Post by lifestyleguru »

k8svet wrote: post #7
fromthegut wrote: post #3

Black Mirror. S3 E3

Bit different imo. If some scammer sends me my bro's penile pic, I'm gonna delete it and warn him. If the scammer sends me proof he was consuming illegal, immoral CSAM, I'm having a vastly different reaction. The shame is the key to this scam. The intersection of (especially teenaged) insecurity, and America cultures nonsensical relationship to sex and shame, is tragic.

UK and US: "All porn (copyrights) belongs to us"

also UK and US: "We don't even wank to it"

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