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

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

#91

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.

"Typical" revenge porn, as far as I am aware, overwhelmingly has women victims. That is also why many victim networks are by and for women. It's also, as far as I know, rare for the "typical" case to be linked to extortion.

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

#92
post #34

I don't understand what would motivate someone to ever send an explicit photo of themselves to a stranger. The whole premise of this scam makes no sense. Like, is this not the most basic of the basics of online safety?

You go on a dating app, a girl responds with her nudes and you send yours. It turns out it was a guy looking to extort you.

This happened to my son… they had a couple hundred in Apple gift cards out of him before we found out and stopped it

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

#93
post #75

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…

I was a full-time mom for a lot of years and I'm not religious, but in religious families, religion strongly shapes concepts of morality.

Currently, the Catholic church has a track record of de facto aiding and abetting child molesting priests. I think there's room for improvement.

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

#94
post #75

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…

> when parents were held responsible for their kids

Yet your comment reminds me of be the modern opposite take on parental responsibility: blame most everything on childhood trauma, and blame trauma on the parents.

We used to blame autism on mothers.

Seriously, we make as much sense as our ancestors blaming miasma for sickness. Remember the hellscape fad of recovering repressed memories? There are people that blame trauma on their past lives!

We all literally have no idea about any of this: our best bet is to be non-judgemental, do our best to create good communities, and to accept our own ignorance.

> The results, I mean the kids, always show how parenting went

Why is this such a common way to think?

Personally some of the worst things I have done I have learnt from my peers. My middle-class innocent parents are not to blame.

> Mother is a safe haven and initial care and nurture

I think stereotypes are dangerous. I'm middle-aged and while we can make generalisations about mothers and fathers, I've learnt that those generalisations can't be applied to individual mothers and fathers.

And conversing about this is just plain hard. I definitely don't want to attack you: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35576696

Anyways: To my best knowledge I've really veered off the path - please don't delve into my comment too far. Black and white thinking can be a problem and I'm just as guilty of that as anybody: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Splitting_(psychology)

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

#95

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.

My parents' home phone used to receive several scam calls a week from India. There was no way to stop them short of giving up the landline, which is what I did. I can't believe phone companies (in the UK) don't provide better protection, even a registry of whitelisted numbers, that could be set for the old/vulnerable.

Well, I am in and from India, and I receive several scam calls a month from India.

Indians, by number of victims, are the biggest victims of Indian scammers. Several people I know personally have been burned.

Our phone numbers are in several lists, and they get leaked.

I think one solution to this is strict data privacy laws. If there is a list with phone numbers/addresses, it should be subject to highest level of care and security. Or there should be laws banning collection of phone numbers unless absolutely needed.

No amount of spreading awareness seems to work. The local law enforcement of the exact two states in India where the domestic scammers are from are also "involved".

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

#96
post #34

I don't understand what would motivate someone to ever send an explicit photo of themselves to a stranger. The whole premise of this scam makes no sense. Like, is this not the most basic of the basics of online safety?

It's not just teenagers, my friend's brother fell prey to this. His life is one ongoing mental health crisis. These people are truly the scum of the earth, their scam only works on vulnerable people by design. Disgusting.

> It's not just teenagers,

No. Apparently it also happens with british Member of Parliament. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/04/senior-tory...

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

#97
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just teenagers, my friend's brother fell prey to this. His life is one ongoing mental health crisis. These people are truly the scum of the earth, their scam only works on vulnerable people by design. Disgusting.

> It's not just teenagers, No. Apparently it also happens with british Member of Parliament. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/04/senior-tory...

To be fair the scammers did lead him on with an unsolicited picture of a tractor sans engine cover.

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

#98
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> how the hell would a teacher have access to the image to forward to the parents?

By accident? The teacher and the and the other teen have the same first or last name, or the next one in the contact list, or the autofill rearranged just before clicking, or just one missclick... there are so many ways it could have happened.

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

#99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm going out on a different limb and suggest that a scammer that is unable to invest time into setting up a VPN so that they can talk to teenagers outside of Nigeria probably isn't the sort of scammer that causes this kind of problem.

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

#100
post #98
post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> how the hell would a teacher have access to the image to forward to the parents? By accident? The teacher and the and the other teen have the same first or last name, or the next one in the contact list, or the autofill rearranged just before clicking, or just one missclick... there are so many ways it could have happened.

Then report it to the police, don’t forward a naked image of someone’s child to them? Not only is it likely distribution of CP, it’s also an insane thing to do. As Doreen said, she doesn’t want to see her lads nudes. I’m pretty sure my mother doesn’t want to see my knob either, who in their right mind would forward that to anywhere but law enforcement?

Not to mention your absolute stretch of a scenario. Do kids typically have their teachers phone numbers in their contacts? Have them added on Facebook? Follow them on Insta? These are all genuine safeguarding issues in themselves, imo (granted I haven’t been in school for 10-15 years). I feel you’re being disingenuous here.

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