181–190 of 192 posts
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.
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…
I think the problem is knowing what to do preemptively (which affects everyone who might help, not just the church). I am sure that if they asked a priest/paster/whatever they would be told that.
What can you do if they do not ask for. Preach a sermon on this specific problem? There are many variants and you need to get the message across. Maybe a general sermon on the risk of blackmail in general, and talking about where victims can get help, explaining the blackmailer is doing something wrong.
I think parents have a critical role to play. Talk about things like staying safe online, not trusting people, the fact that people assume false identities.
I know my teenage daughter does not disclose her real identity online. I have spoken to her about the dangers of doing so. I will give this as an example, not because I am worried that exactly the same thing would happen, but as an example of the general sort of things that happen. It might be something you say rather than a selfie, for example.
> Taking a nude selfie should be safer than baring your body in person. No risk of STDs or pregnancy are involved. And yet we've turned it into this hugely dangerous thing for anyone who hasn't spent years thinking about sexual morality who isn't prepared to say to law enforcement and the world "Nudes of me? Big fucking deal."
I agree. The law and culture is badly out of date.
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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
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Agreed on this being a basic first step, although any scammer of any value would just get a VPN. Another user noted that OnlyFans is analyzing text and bans anyone saying anything approaching blackmail. Odd (but maybe not odd at all) to think that OnlyFans might be the leader on this.
I agree. Yet, I assume professionals (with VPN) would definitely attract more law enforcement action due to size of transfers. But if you can prevent script kiddies, why not? The current barrier to entry is so damn low. Paying VPN is indeed a barrier to entry.
From the point of Facebook, I think they use SMS verification and their app also requires location permission. Facebook is pretty good at preventing bad signups. What they need to do is invest that effort in keeping their user base safe.
(1) Most young people are insecure as anything and have unhealthy self-esteem.
(2) Culturally the west is very (and I mean very) ashamed of nudity.
Problem (1) isn't something that can be done half-assed. The kid will need a healthy family, friends, support system. They will need to be free of traumatic influences... While (2) I see as being more practical.
If you look at European countries they are much more naturalist regarding nudity. Like Dutch have their Freikörperkultur (FKK) free body movement where there's many places where you can go and do activities nude. Mixed gender saunas where people are naked are common. Then there's Japan where parents commonly bathe with their children. It teaches them not to be ashamed of their body.
We don't really have anything like that in the west. It's really quite dangerous because its just like: do we expect literal teenagers to practice good opsec when adults can't even get that shit right?
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Teenage boys won't necessarily know the distinction between what's shameful and what's illegal, or the bigger political beliefs around CSAM. Don't you think you're perpetuating the fear of sexuality by effectively threating to cause serious harm to teenagers for looking at the wrong kinds of pictures? Why is there such a binary classification of "no shame" and "calling the cops"? Different countries' laws put that di…
I don't think you should've been downvoted, I reread my comment last night and realized I didn't make it as clear. I mentioned that shame (of sexuality/nudity/vulgarity) as a contrast to fear of being caught doing something illegal, because I think we should work to remove that shame. Or at least that magnitude of it. I have my own relationship and journey with this American-puritanical bs shame. Life's short, lots o…
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The basic rule of online safety is not to meet people from the internet IRL and even if, never to get into their cars. And yet, the business of calling strangers over the internet specifically to get into their cars somehow grew into a 200 billion dollar industry. Strange world, isn't it.
Because there is a corporate third party that can identify both the driver and the customer. Moreso the driver than the customer, but then again the driver can have cameras in the vehicle and doesn't carry cash like a taxi does, so they are not in any significant danger either.
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.
Ironically Onlyfans have really good systems for this. All communication is monitored and any mention of blackmail (including indirect references) will get the sending account banned.
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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.
Even assuming this is technically feasible (a premise others don't believe), it is ethically wrong to cut off an entire country from the Internet because a small portion of the population are committing crimes. Imagine a large American city getting cut off from Facebook because there are many people selling shoplifted items on FB Marketplace and your underfunded govt doesn't have the financial ability to crack down o…
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Ironically Onlyfans have really good systems for this. All communication is monitored and any mention of blackmail (including indirect references) will get the sending account banned.
What? How does that work on only fans of all places? Surely you'd just DMCA the "extorter" (read: copyright breacher)
AFAIK Onlyfans doesn't directly purse blackmail cases with its own legal teams, it just bans accounts.