#scams
#FaithHealing Cringe Fails: Part 3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoamMMrQLcg
Can #prayer heal #disease or are #televangelism & #healing #revivals giant money-making #scams? Let's debunk #faith #healers again! And watch #PatRobertson's hilarious failed #MittRomney #prophecy.
Women who work in adult chat rooms are called "cam girls". I say the women that work for "wrong number" text message scams should be called "scam girls".
However in the latter case they are not actually behind the scam or significant beneficiaries - they are just tools or "front women" of the orgs that operate them. The send out R rated photos, try to engage respondents and gain their confidence, then ply them with a fraudulent scam.
Watch out for the latest wave of #CanadaPost #email #scams
This one was from IP address 197.242.151.110 in South Africa which has had some reports against it in recent weeks.
Trading Standards Trusted Trader is a great way of avoiding #scams. All traders are vetted by Local Authority Trading Standards and the scheme is supported by Police Scotland. https://www.trustedtrader.scot/about-us
@FTL_Ian
If #banks were so worried about "#scams". How about they run workshops empowering people with knowledge on how they can avoid MITM'd websites that are decrypted at Cloud(G)lare, (Sc)Amazon, and Akamai.
Workshops on using computers they have *full* control over, with control over who can contact them over #XMPP?
Workshop people protecting themselves by using privacy browsers like Tor.
Oh that's right they actually don't care about their customers, at all.
New #grandparent #scam doesn't target grandparents
https://blog.geebo.com/2023/09/26/new-version-of-grandparent-scam-changes-the-target/
We must do Everything, Everywhere, All at Once to mitigate #ClimateChange, including reducing our #GreenhouseGas #emissions and removing #carbon from our #atmosphere.
#Greenwashing #scams like carbon #offsets do nothing to save us #climate change because they ignore the existing problems.
We need serious and sustained actions to reverse the damage we've already done while also stopping the damage we continue to do.
A fraud suspect is in custody after being accused of stealing over $100,000 from unwitting victims, and APD is wearing and selling pink patches and lapel pins for Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
https://alamedapost.com/news/apd-updates-fraud-arrest-pink-patches-for-breast-cancer-awareness/
#alameda #apd #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth #FullertonPoliceDepartment #investigation #scams
#GenZ falls for online #scams more than their boomer #grandparents do
To boost its popularity, Temu enables customers to generate referral numbers and links that can be shared with friends, family, and on social media platforms.
The #Belief It Or Not Podcast: Ep. 142 - #Christians and #MLMs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xPBOzq3PNZQ
#religion #marketing #scams #god #church #sundayschool #atheism #atheist #beliefs
Third-party #LinkShortener / #URLshortener services are the web equivalent of open email relays with the added disadvantage of introducing #LinkRot when the link creator’s account is closed or the service shuts down entirely. They’re magnets for #spam, #scams, and #malware distributors.
If you have a legitimate need for shortened links (posting to #Mastodon isn’t, see previous post), run your own that you and your users can trust.
The cybercriminals behind this campaign have adopted an indirect approach by creating a fake Booking.com payment page, which significantly increases their success rate in collecting credit card information.
Oh, Gen Z, I honor thee
For facing threats on the internet sea
You're not invulnerable, that is true
But you fight back and keep hope anew
And through it all, you continue to be
A beacon of strength to those who can't see
#genz #hackers #scams #cybersecurity #ode #poetry
https://www.vox.com/technology/23882304/gen-z-vs-boomers-scams-hacks
Make Use Of: Don’t Be Fooled! 5 Tips to Avoid Fake Apps in the Windows Store https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/dont-fooled-5-tips-avoid-fake-apps-windows-store/ #Tech #MakeUseOf #TechNews #IT via @morganeogerbc #WindowsStore #Windows10 #Windows11 #Windows #Scams
#StudentLoan #Scams Are Surging. What Borrowers Need to Know About #Repayment Options
https://www.cnet.com/personal-finance/loans/student-loans/survey-over-4-in-10-student-loan-borrowers-unsure-of-repayment-options/#ftag=CADf328eec
#Crypto #Blockchain #NFTs #Scams: "Are NFTs dead?
A recent study looking at the price of thousands of collections seems to suggest the answer is, "yes."
A report by dappGambl found that 95% of non-fungible tokens are effectively worthless. Out of 73,257 NFT collections, 69,795 of them have a market cap of zero ether, based on data provided by NFT Scan and CoinMarketCap.
By their estimates, almost 23 million people hold these worthless assets.
"This daunting reality should serve as a sobering check on the euphoria that has often surrounded the NFT space," the researchers said. "Amid stories of digital art pieces selling for millions and overnight success stories, it is easy to overlook the fact that the market is fraught with pitfalls and potential losses.""
DraftKings' Billionaire-Backed Crypto Analytics Firm CoinScan Raises $6.3M - The company is backed by Shalom Meckenzie, the largest individual shareholder in sports b... - https://www.coindesk.com/business/2023/09/21/draftkings-billionaire-backed-crypto-analytics-firm-coinscan-raises-63m/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=headlines #fundraising #draftkings #exploits #finance #funding #hacks #scams #news
Biden is turning US towns into test subjects for climate scams. The administration approved the Willow oil project in Alaska and its support for plastic burning and carbon capture technologies. Is this risking the health and safety of rural communities? #Biden #climate #scams https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/biden-climate-emergency-2665397827?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=HariTulsidas%2Fmagazine%2FArchetypes
Paralegal-Investigator Rico Fenix warns Alamedans of an elaborate rental scam popping up around the island. Scammers are stealing money and personal information from would-be renters looking for a place to live.
https://alamedapost.com/op-ed/my-home-their-scam/
#alameda #AlamedaCityAttorney #CityOfAlameda #ProsecutionAndPublicRightsUnit #renting #scams
So some of you might remember this post (and the subsequent demonstration on national news) of using a voice cloning tool (AI, Audio Deep Fake) by @racheltobac
Link to post: https://infosec.exchange/@racheltobac/110963070495263373
(If you haven't seen it, go watch it. Rachel is amazing.)
I'd never needed to do a similar attack before, but! I was just tasked yesterday with researching it.
Asked some friends for a turn-key solution to clone voices. Got pointed to a website. Signed up for $1 a month (first month... then it goes to $5 a month thereafter).
Pulled some audio of my target's voice down from a youtube interview (a podcast works great too).
Only needed a minute's worth of audio.
Uploaded it to the website for cloning.
Typed out a quick script for the voice to read.
30 seconds later, I had my cloned audio.
It was so good, that it even included natural voice inflections AND!!! verbal pauses like umm's and uhh's that matched the target's original presentation. I can't tell the difference between the cloned voice and the original person.
Y'all... voice cloning and audio deep fakes are well past the ease of "script-kiddy" level. Anyone can do it.
#infosec #hacking #socialEngineering #scams #deepfake #AI #phishing #vishing
Lawyer who laundered $400M from OneCoin scam denied new trial: Report - A lawyer who laundered $400 million from the OneCoin scam has bee... - https://cointelegraph.com/news/onecoin-lawyer-laundered-proceeds-scam-denied-new-trial #onecoin #scams #court #law
Folks who are admins on facebook pages (as I am for 5 million different community groups or advocacy things or whatever) - there’s a new scam that my pages are getting hit by constantly lately, where you’ll get a notification like “New message from [Facebook Support/Community Standards/something very official sounding]” And clicking that will say your page has been disabled because of a standards violation, and click this link to confirm your account to un-disable it. THIS IS A SCAM. #scams
Great article -- Pivot to AI: Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain (why "AI" as we know it is bullshit):
https://amycastor.com/2023/09/12/pivot-to-ai-pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #hype #fad #fads #scam #scams #scammers #OpenAI #VentureCapital #VC #VCs #VCMoney #bullshit #garbage #labor #future #tech
#Crypto #Cryptocurrencies #FTX #Scams: "Both parents have distinguished careers that long precede their son’s alleged fraud. They met in the 1980s at Stanford University, where they taught at the law school for more than three decades, living on campus and raising two sons. Bankman, an expert on taxes, is renowned for his work making the US tax code friendlier to lower-income citizens. Fried, an authority on legal ethics, was prominent in progressive political circles.
At the time the ad aired, critics were warning that FTX was luring naive investors with extremely risky financial instruments that were mostly banned in the US. Those investors would see their money vanish when the funds were diverted, without their knowledge, to a hedge fund that Bankman-Fried also owned. FTX collapsed and filed for bankruptcy in November 2022."
Here’s ANOTHER Example As To Why #Scams Are So Dangerous
https://itnerd.blog/2023/09/16/i-help-to-stop-scammer-who-tried-to-steal-50k-from-a-senior/
Here’s ANOTHER Example As To Why #Scams Are So Dangerous https://itnerd.blog/2023/09/16/i-help-to-stop-scammer-who-tried-to-steal-50k-from-a-senior/
@sz_duras well things like #scams will or rather already have become more prevalent. But if you want something "new" new it's people using #AI to pretend to be someone else: for example selling AI generated Artwork as human made, or you hire a lawyer that is actually just selling good "sounding" legal work
#Crypto #Cryptocurrencies #Scams #HumanTrafficking #Cambodia: "A few years ago, an editor asked Bloomberg investigative reporter Zeke Faux to take a look at the cryptocurrency Tether, a so-called stablecoin meant to precisely track the US dollar by backing it with real-world reserves. What followed was a tour through some of the most-colorful corners of the crypto world, from Mighty Ducks actor Brock Pierce’s yacht to FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried’s digs in the Bahamas.
But more darkly, Faux’s reporting also led to revelations about ties between international digital scams, cryptocurrency and human trafficking in Cambodia.
Faux joined the What Goes Up podcast to discuss his experiences chasing the story, which is laid out in his new book, Number Go Up: Inside Crypto’s Wild Rise and Staggering Fall."
"The [NH Board of Education] approved PragerU's financial literacy 'Cash Course' for its Learn Everywhere program for half a credit. The course consists of 15 five-minute videos about financial literacy.
"According to its website, PragerU 'offers a free alternative to the dominant left-wing ideology in culture, media and education.'"
https://www.wmur.com/article/new-hampshire-prageru-financial-literacy-91423/45143954
Good little scam email today.
Payment from HSBC
With a 'track payment' link
Track payment link has the usual sort of URL stuff like:
https://badurl.com/?a=blahblah&e=someemail@domain.com
Whatever is in @domain.com bit it then loads the real web site, grabs the logo if it can, shows the web site, pops up a 'session expired' login again box, asks for your details etc. Very clever as I can imagine many people falling for that when they see their own company web site load.
It’s been a little odd(er than usual) today, what with this postcard and this afternoon’s scammy text message conversation. Apparently, someone took the “freak magnet” and hid it in my backpack...
#PigButchering #crypto #cryptocurrency #CryptoScam #CryptocurrencyScam #scam #scams #text #texting
https://www.joeydevilla.com/2023/09/14/i-m-a-cryptocurrency-scam-magnet-today/
Make Use Of: 6 Temu Scams You Should Be Aware Of https://www.makeuseof.com/temu-scams-to-be-aware-of/ #Tech #MakeUseOf #TechNews #IT via @morganeogerbc #OnlineShoppingTips #OnlineShopping #OnlineSecurity #OnlinePrivacy #DataSecurity #Security #Scams
Since we're seeing such nostalgia for Mitt Romney, here's a reminder about how he made the big money
https://krebscycle99.net/2012/07/17/romneys-ripoff-capitalism/
#uspolitics #romney #bain #scams
Nigerian prince/419 scams make a comeback with AI #CyberSecurity #Scams
https://betanews.com/2023/09/14/nigerian-princes-are-back-now-with-the-help-of-ai/
OneCoin Co-Founder Karl Greenwood Sentenced to 20 Years in Prison - U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos also ordered Greenwood to forfeit $300 million, the app... - https://www.coindesk.com/policy/2023/09/13/onecoin-co-founder-karl-greenwood-sentenced-to-20-years-in-prison/?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=rss&utm_campaign=headlines #pyramidschemes #rujaignatova #onecoin #policy #scams #fraud #crime #news
@TheConversationUS #scams #tech #lifetips In 2013 I began dating a widow in her late 50s. She had fallen for an online dating scammer. In 2019 I dated a 70+ divorced woman. She had also fallen for an online dating scammer. Both of these women were very intelligent w/professional careers. Of the handful of women I dated from 2013 to 2020 this is ~40%. My experience makes me think your numbers are an understatement.
Sometimes, the love is too good to be true.
💔 💔 💔
In the US alone, 70,000 people reported falling victim to online romantic scams in 2022, with reported losses topping $1.3 billion.
#scams #tech #lifetips
https://theconversation.com/online-romance-scams-research-reveals-scammers-tactics-and-how-to-defend-against-them-210124
📺 Telemarketers Is a Fantastically Wild, Scam-Filled Gem
https://jacobin.com/2023/09/telemarketers-is-a-fantastically-wild-scam-filled-gem/
Bryan King Legend is a scammer who has to be stopped
@georgetakei 24-minute listen on NPR about romance scams.
“Host Brittany Luse talks first to Laci Mosley, host of a podcast called Scam Goddess, about how even a scam queen can become a victim. Then, Brittany chats with Susan Tompor, money columnist at the Detroit Free Press, about how these scams work, what's being done about them and why we all need to stop judging people who've fallen prey to scams.”
I seriously need to change my number. So many unknown numbers calling me and today nearly fell for this scam 😳
Careful, guys!
https://www.samudera.my/guna-jt-tipu-pelanggan-taktik-terbaharu-scammer/
From Vox, an overview of how generative AI is facilitating certain types of publishing scams #WritingCommunity #Scams #ArtificialIntelligence #Copyright https://www.vox.com/culture/23827325/publishing-ai-scams-large-language-models
From 14 Aug: Permissible Plunder: Legalized Exploitation of the Vulnerable - Although it might be legal, it certainly is not just. https://ideatrash.net/2023/08/permissible-plunder-legalized-exploitation-of-the-vulnerable.html #economics #politics #scam #scams #society #justice #legality
#Phishing Emails Generated by #LLMs & human models gained 81% Click Rates 👇️:2001:
(Actually, people who fall into those traps must be too desperate to claim stupid "gift cards" 🤦️)
https://cybersecuritynews.com/phishing-emails-generated-by-chatgpt/
If you're in Las Vegas this week, be sure to stop by DEF CON's AI Village this Saturday. The Sophos X-Ops AI team will be presenting findings on how generative AI can be used to run large-scale phishing and scam campaigns. Details on the talk can be found here:
We'll be posting more details from the talk after DEF CON. #AI #adversarialAI #LLMs #generativeai #phishing #scams
I just noticed
40.83.2.68 - - [05/Aug/2023:12:27:44 +0200] "GET /~peter/wankstortion/20210106_wankstortion_message73e86b03477f2%40hireassociation.co.uk_i_recorded_you_bsdly%40bsdly.net.txt HTTP/1.1" 200 6746 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; GPTBot/1.0; +https://openai.com/gptbot)"
- will we see "convincing" #wankstortion coming out of #openai #gptbot? (background - https://bsdly.blogspot.com/2022/12/the-despicable-no-good-blackmail.html trackerless https://www.nxdomain.no/~peter/despicable_no_good_blackmail.html) #sextortion #scams #spam
Concerning.
---
WormGPT could see online scams get far more sophisticated than Nigerian princes
#Scam #Scams https://www.smh.com.au/technology/online-scams-are-about-to-get-more-sophisticated-than-nigerian-princes-20230726-p5dre4.html
https://stocks.apple.com/AK-VtpcenRcOlFknQhF1-2w
“Some companies increasingly want to know where their money is going and what prices they pay for care, but insurers say they must keep those details private to stay competitive.
“‘It kind of makes you wonder, is there something that they're hiding that they won't release this information?’ said Michael Thompson, a trustee who represents union contractors that pay into the Connecticut unions’ health plans suing Elevance.”
"'With writing,' Runner told me, 'you can get the attention of someone, and at the end, after a few minutes, the person sends a cheque, to get a product, to an address or company they’ve never heard of.'” —Rachel Browne for The Walrus
https://thewalrus.ca/the-greatest-scam-ever-written/
#Longreads #EditorsPicks #Scams #MailOrderFraud #Grifter #Psychic
' It’s a simple bargain: The rich get huge tax breaks by donating art, property and company shares to benefit the public. But some donors collect millions while offering little or no public access. '
PSA: #Google results for businesses (including banks) can be (have been) hacked--specifically, the phone numbers that pop on the search page. Always go directly to the business' website and use that number.
Also: as technology improves, the 'bad call quality' will soon not be a reliable giveaway that it's a hacked number.
Protect yourselves, double check!
@GossiTheDog #NFT's are rarely good.
I've seen some that ain't just shitty cringe and actually did provide some value, but at least 99,999% of them are just #scams to rip off gullible & rich tech-illiterates...
But don't just take #DanOlson's word for it...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g
I don't understand why anyone bothers trying to rope #childfree middle-aged #women into #PyramidSchemes or #MLM #scams. Sorry, Ashley P from high school, but are you not aware that I've successfully resisted pressure from *every child-having friend and relative* to buy into their "have kids" pyramid scheme? You really think you're going to tempt me with peer pressure and shitty skincare products? My skin already looks 10 years younger than yours because I don't wake up 6 times a night with a screaming toddler.
the next part is to start asking ME to validate myself to THEM, by offering up MY details, but I didn't stick around. It might've asked me to input something.
If you proceed beyond that point, once they know you're dumb enough, they'll get a human to take over and try to get you to cough up the credit card number, expiry, cvv, and your name/address, after which they have everything needed to make fraudulent charges.
@feditips also #LinkShorteners are extremely susceptible to #LinkRot and are easy to abuse for #malware, #scams and other bad actions!
OFC these #Scams with #FakeTech are as old as #flash media are....
I remember #bootleg #USB #flashdrives and #SD cards since the mid- to late 2000s...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjVvlaCGGhA
If you saw my long viral exposé of those celeb-obituary crypto scams on Twitter, I passed all I had over to the Mirror, who have now carried out their own investigation:
"Elon must act to stop the tide of frauds swamping Twitter"
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/elon-must-act-stop-tide-30451315
You wouldn't fall for a phone scam, right? Eh, don't be so sure. As I write:
"The ever-evolving crooked schemes leverage our own highly evolved cognitive traits that are sometimes ill-equipped for the modern, interconnected, info-saturated world."
And now, using #AI to generate imposter voices, #scams involving children in an accident or abducted are a real threat. Learn how to overcome your natural cognitive shortcomings and be prepared:
https://medium.com/wise-well/duped-why-we-fall-for-increasingly-scary-phone-scams-94038352db41
There's only a few days left to ask the CFPB to help make you safer online by regulating data brokers.
Feeling strapped for time? Don't worry, we made a template to help.
https://www.tallpoppy.com/blog/act-now-help-the-cfpb-make-you-safer-online
#cybersecurity #security #digitalsafety #fraudprevention #scams
🦘🏦
While Australian banks refuse most scam victims refunds, the UK is making them mandatory; Australia could follow the UK
Warn your older loved ones! Sharing articles by a pal whose mom was scammed out of life savings. USA not doing much to combat the growing scam, and organized crime is getting into the "game" now too. So, I want to help amplify this info, and remind you to tell your aging family to unplug computer if anything weird happens, if people bully them, then call family, etc.
https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-2023/fake-online-tech-support.html
https://www.oodaloop.com/archive/2023/06/28/it-is-time-to-declare-war-on-spoofers/
NEW: Right-Wing Websites Connected to Former #Trump Lawyer Are Scamming Loyal Followers With Phony Celebrity Pitches
==
A mysterious network called AdStyle is placing ads with fake #endorsements from #celebrities like #Oprah Winfrey and #ElonMusk on #conservative sites based in the U.S. and abroad.
Here's what the UK is doing to try to stop scams at the source. I have no idea what the financial impact is in the USA, but I've read some heart rending stories about seniors losing their homes (and as posted in this thread above, a friend's mom losing her life savings) to these criminals.
So far, USA not doing much about this at all.
@carnage4life Interesting. I just spent an evening with friends, and one has been researching this topic after his mother was scammed out of most of her life savings. :( He is working to try to gather key players to coordinate and do in the USA what is being done in the UK, Australia, Singapore (with text messaging) Two of his articles: https://www.oodaloop.com/archive/2023/06/28/it-is-time-to-declare-war-on-spoofers/
and
https://www.oodaloop.com/archive/2023/05/11/tech-support-scams-are-escalating-dramatically-what-should-society-do-to-respond/
#scams
Who’s Behind the DomainNetworks Snail Mail Scam?
From @briankrebs
+1 for Domain WHOIS privacy protection.
Personally, I've never received one of these - but somehow they've pinged the email associated with the record via a relay/aliasing service.
#privacy #privacymatters #scams
https://krebsonsecurity.com/2023/07/whos-behind-the-domainnetworks-snail-mail-scam/
I've been collecting screenshots from around the internets of bad UX/UI or just downright scammy design. Thinking that I'll compile them into a what-not-to-do list. It's my own contribution to making the web a better place by calling out bad actors when I see it.
This one for instance. It comes up under a search for focus assistant or ADHD alternatives. It says Buy Now but doesn't tell you the price until you use the buy now button.
And for right now I will set aside how predatory this all is considering the very real shortages of Rx ADHD drugs.
#UX #UI #Scams
Dispatches from the #Twitter war:
• The bots have won
• Elon has lost
• Now is the time to encourage defection
• No, NOT to BlueSky
I can elaborate:
The Bots have Won
================
Back in early 2022, #ElonMusk promised to purchase Twitter and wage war on bots, presumably the ones that were peddling cryptocurrency #scams, romance scams, and all sorts of other scams.
There is a good chance that Elon only said this to try to weasel his way out of purchasing Twitter; basically, if he could claim that the product he was promised didn't resemble what was available in reality, he could undo his promise to purchase the corporation. By claiming Twitter was rife with bots, this was his attempt to do so. But whether it was dishonest or not, Elon stuck to his pledge to try to rid the platform of #bots, in ways that are alternatingly incompetent, silly, and ineffective.
Long story short, Elon never saw his "eliminate all bots" promise through to completion. The ultimate concession to failure was when he changed the Twitter algorithm to favor paying users over regular ones, meaning the best way to be heard on the platform was to give him $8 and say your piece. But that $8 surcharge came at a steep cost: no longer were tweets being amplified based on the content of their quality, but on whether the user had extra money to waste or not.
Initially, maybe this was good for the paying users too. After all, someone with $8 who follows Elon might consider themselves very smart, and those people think they have some very smart things to say. To the average onlooker, though, their "very smart musings" look like complete and utter crap: unfunny jokes, stale memes, cold takes.
It turns out that having money doesn't equal intelligence, and Twitter was providing us evidence at a rapid pace.
Elon has Lost
===========
Let's get the obvious things out first: Elon overpaid for Twitter. That much we know. And the value of Twitter has tanked since then, because even the free market won't continue to honor foolish business decisions.
But today, Elon has started limiting the posts that various users are even allowed to see, as low as 300 posts per day for new users, 600 for normal users, and 6000 for the fools who pay $8 to him.
As I understand it, 300 to 600 posts is not a lot. For comparison, when you click Show More in Mastodon, you're probably loading 20 posts at a minimum. Click Show More 30 times, and you've already seen 600. Depending on your usage habits (maybe you just like to skim!) you can easily breeze through these limits in a fraction of an hour.
And that's just not good for user retention. If somebody is locked out of a website after spending a certain amount of time there, I don't think they're going to cough up a couple extra dollars to keep browsing. When the Bezos-owned Washington Post begs me to subscribe to their newspaper, I turn 180° and look for a different source. And the Post actually has valuable information, it's not a cesspit riddled with self-important idiots who pay money to get their unfunny jokes stuck to the top of comment threads.
Now is the Time to Encourage Defection
=================================
Imagine you love Elon Musk, you think he can do nothing wrong, and you even join Twitter just to see how much better it can become under his new leadership. And you get hit with a 300 post maximum before the site stops working and/or begs you to cough up your hard-earned cash, to the guy you're pretty sure is already a billionaire.
Isn't it just disheartening?
Here's a more reasonable scenario: You're a Twitter addict. We've all been there, after all. The conversations suck you in, and they're almost always negative conversations too. Twitter drives its engagement based on negative interactions, using #addiction forming patterns that resemble the casino slot machine more than a public square.
Then, one day, whatever #argument you are watching or participating in, suddenly gets replaced with a "insert $8 to continue" screen. It's straight out of a #MontyPython sketch. For the displeasure of raising your stress levels and your blood pressure, you must now spend money.
This is horrible. All of it is absolutely, totally horrible. Anyone who was lulled into complacency by Twitter should now have their way of life shaken to the point of reconsidering why they use the platform. I used to be among them, and I cannot stress how much I regret giving Twitter my time. There are good people on Twitter, but there is no good Twitter to be had.
Stay Away from BlueSky
====================
Never choose the lesser of two evils, when there are more than two viable choices. It has been a trend, recently, for large influencers to hope to recreate Twitter, verbatim, somewhere or anywhere else. The November 2022 #TwitterMigration seemed to be equal parts #TwitterRefugee and hapless influencer who was simply looking for the most interaction.
Never mind the complexities of Mastodon, most influencers were disappointed by how it was difficult to reassemble the same audience as they had on Twitter. The network effect was in full swing on Twitter: you joined Twitter because people were there, and people were there because you joined Twitter, so not joining Twitter became simply unfeasible for most people.
Influencers do understand one thing: hero worship. And if you were complacent during earlier Twitter, perhaps the easiest hero to worship is #JackDorsey. He created Twitter, after all. And sure, Twitter itself was always toxic ever since it started encouraging arguments. Maybe a lot of people have succumbed to addiction to Twitter, and have decided that Twitter is now only bad because of Elon Musk, and not because it was always bad.
The people in this mindset are more than happy to follow Jack Dorsey to his next terrible creation, which appears to be BlueSky. Right now, the website is simply a Twitter clone, and it's begging influencers to come to it because soon, it infers, it will be the Twitter for people who aren't quite as extreme as Elon Musk.
I hate to use the term, and I do not use it lightly, but #BlueSky is "virtue signaling" about being #federated. Right now, there is only one BlueSky server, and it is invite only. Something cannot be federated if there's nothing to federate with, especially if it's closed off from the world to begin with.
But do you know why BlueSky is #VirtueSignalling? Quite simply: it has nothing else to offer. Mastodon is, as most foundational level, a federated Twitter clone. BlueSky is, at ITS most foundational level, a Twitter clone with nothing to separate it from Twitter. But being federated is what all the cool kids want, so Jack Dorsey weaseled the word into its description to make people think it might be like Mastodon, if not compatible with it.
Jack Dorsey has always been a fundamentally bad person, a #libertarian #techbro who has no qualms about supporting the far right when it helps him.
Dorsey is friends with #Jan6 promoter, #StopTheSteal believer, and all-around right wing disinfo peddler #AliAlexander, for example. He has always had constant, open dialogues with conservatives who want to accuse him of being too biased against them, and he is often stooped to appease them without questioning whether they were lying to him the entire time.
But don't take my word for it, here is an excellent article about it:
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2021/07/07/we-make-mistakes-twitters-embrace-extreme-far-right
Dorsey has also become more obsessed with #cryptocurrency in recent years, with a huge donation to the Twitter-like #Nostr social network, a place where almost all conversations are one-sided cryptocurrency plugs, and sending cryptocurrency over it was one of the defining features.
And Nostr wants to be #PayToWin too, the same way Twitter currently is.
Final thoughts
============
Succinctly: Mastodon is good, actually. It has a lot of flaws, it has a lot of user experience issues to work out, but I am incredibly thankful it is not being driven into the ground by venture capitalists hell-bent on extracting as much time, money, and attention out of the average human being as possible.
Article from The Verge on the state of big tech in 2023 (it's crap!)
"Google is trying to kill the 10 blue links. Twitter is being abandoned to bots and blue ticks. There’s the junkification of Amazon and the enshittification of TikTok. Layoffs are gutting online media. A job posting looking for an 'AI editor' expects 'output of 200 to 250 articles per week.' ChatGPT is being used to generate whole spam sites. Etsy is flooded with 'AI-generated junk.' Chatbots cite one another in a misinformation ouroboros. LinkedIn is using AI to stimulate tired users. Snapchat and Instagram hope bots will talk to you when your friends don’t. Redditors are staging blackouts. Stack Overflow mods are on strike. The Internet Archive is fighting off data scrapers, and 'AI is tearing Wikipedia apart.'"
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/26/23773914/ai-large-language-models-data-scraping-generation-remaking-web
#scams #scammers #tech #ai #google #twitter #tiktok #reddit #etsy #wikipedia #TheInternetArchive #amazon #LinkedIn #snapchat #instagram #StackOverflow #enshittification #ChatGPT #jobs #future
@web3isgreat what do we learn from this: #NFTs as of now are almost always #scams...
Expectable that sometime they get to be the dump and not the pump...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQ_xWvX1n9g
Any other guys have weird spam accounts on here acting like attractive ladies nearby? I had one. It was so weird, she kept DMing me and giving me her email, asking if I was on Telegram, and her bio was so generic and bizarre, it was clearly phony. The bio was kind of odd, overcapitalized English and that's how the DMs were too-- despite her public posts (and there weren't many) being perfectly spelled (obviously copied from somewhere). The scammers are getting really good, too. Her profile had legit-seeming pics that pulled up nothing when I reverse image searched them. Plus, I'm married, and really? Cmon. I just had to block her.
Crypto is garbage. And the fact that Fortune has a section for it, including a section for NFTs, should tell you all you need to know about Fortune, too. https://archive.ph/ardgp
"To prove to her mother-in-law that she had been swindled, the Florida woman said she drove her to a nearby bank and urged her to try to redeem the Trump Bucks in her possession. 'We thought she got it, she even admitted she got scammed,' the Florida woman said.' But then giant boxes arrived at the house full of Trump checks and other stuff that she bought for $500 and that would supposedly be worth $6 million one day.'"
#scams on #tribal communities isn’t new.
Been covering fraudulent #rehab centers off and on since December. What pisses me off is that after regular everyday #Natives posted about it on #tiktok and it gained traction, that’s when state and tribal entities acted.
I found it’s been happening since 2019 - so why no warning until recent?
#FBI warning of #fake #job ads to lure people to Southeast Asia, where people are then forced to work in #slave labor camps running #cryptocurrency #scams. #crime https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2023/PSA230522#fn2
What better way to commemorate that day 13 years ago when someone bought fake pizza with fake money than with these “funny because they’re true” bingo cards?
#Bitcoin #pizza #BitcoinPizzaDay #scams #Buttcoin #crypto #cryptocurrency #web3 #bingo #Web3IsGoingJustGreat #Web3IsGoingGreat
https://www.globalnerdy.com/2023/05/22/enjoy-molly-whites-web3-bingo-cards-on-bitcoin-pizza-day/
Same day I get my first crypto/ai spam, Wired runs these two stories. This crap is gonna be a menace. Buckle up
#scams #scammers #ChatGPT #ChatGPTScams #AI #law #regulation #tech #future #Wired
Scam operators built an empire in Southeast Asia through forced labor and human trafficking. A VICE News investigation now confirms their creep to the UAE.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjvbwm/dubai-chinese-scam-mills
#ScamsAndScammers #vicenews #dubai #UAE #scams #southeastasia
Would you fall for this? My youngest kiddo thought she was getting a special #kitten. They just stole $550 of her money and then blocked her on #PayPal without providing the kitten. She spent all of yesterday crying over her lost savings. I didn’t know about it until it was too late. Turns out they have similar sites for #puppies, #birds #reptiles -all #scammer sites.
Caveat emptor. Do not buy #pets from unverified online sellers!