“My annoyance with the Fediverse is all the scammers.”. The constant requests for money “from Gaza” and the doubts of @[email protected]

@fediverse

Warning: A few hours after this post, the user NetscapeNavigator was suspended from the Vivaldi instance

I’ve been vilely attacked in the past, with reports and private messages, simply for writing this

We don’t deserve to be bombarded by thousands of tragic requests for help that we can’t directly verify and that prey on our pity, or worse, our guilt.
Sending private messages is harassment. Sending private messages asking for money is even more odious, because we know that sooner or later, someone vulnerable will donate.

A mastostar, a guy with 47,000 followers who passes for a prominent figure in the Fediverse, told me I’m “just a hugely privileged twat throwing his toys out of the pram because he is being forced to see things he’d rather ignore” and that perhaps I lack a moral compass.

I imagine if I’ve been subjected to harassment for saying something trivial, poor @[email protected] will be subjected to harassment, stalking, doxxing, and multiple reports to force him to close his account.

But what did Netscape write?

Here’s his message before it was deleted:

My annoyance with the Fediverse is all the scammers.
I do not suspect they’re scammers — I know they’re scammers, because they’re using the same photos as the next person. I also have the unique perspective from my job where I deal with this sort of thing professionally (I work for Meta/Facebook).
Some of them are not just staged or stock photos, but even A.I. photos too. Honestly, I always get a small laugh when I see the old photo re-shared with 6 fingers. The stupid scammers are so low-effort here that I doubt they noticed, and I doubt they care. Like all scammers, they want your money quick and easy. Which is why they often re-share the same photos and videos among themselves.
They use both a repeated heart-bleeding story to tug at people’s sympathy, but the reason why they repeat themselves is volume. They’re not so much trying to convince people as they are hoping to flood timelines so someone who is more gullible and who wears their heart on their sleeve will act and give them money.
It is the same marketing tactic corporations use. You see an ad repeated for a soda, and become thirsty, and if you happen to buy their soda, all the better. Just as the scammers repeat their heartfelt story over and over, and you feel sorry, and if you happen to pay them, all the better.
If there is substance, it always circles back to the scam.
A normal person may post a photo of their home and ask for tips on decorating or point out how cool the new couch looks in their living room. The scammer will point out the couch and claim it’s too bad they have to sell it or no longer have it, but it would be better if you gave them money.
A normal person may post a photo of their spouse and children, talking about how proud they are of them or how lucky they feel to have them in their life. The scammer will claim they love their spouse and kids, but it would be better if they had your money.
Everything circles back to needing your money. Everything reinforces the scam.

You’re unlikely to see content that does not circle back to wanting and needing your money.

An assessment of the accusation and the critical issues surrounding the #GazaVerified project

Objectively, @[email protected]’s accusation is not supported by evidence. I’d love to see a dossier from Netscape or a post from @iftas, or even better, a journalistic investigation, but nothing of the sort currently exists.

But what is the verification method for “GazaVerified”? Here it is:

What does the verification process look like?
It’s very simple: we have a quick video chat to verify that you are a Palestinian from Gaza and the same person you say you are on your Mastodon account, after which we add you to Gaza Verified.

A damn video call? Is this the verification method for a fundraising system that moves hundreds of thousands of euros? In an environment heavily influenced by a terrorist organization like Hamas? And so with the risk that donors could be accused of financing a terrorist organization? And with another terrorist organization (the Israeli government) eager to infiltrate the donation request system?

It seems to me like the perfect recipe for creating a gigantic explosive backpack to blow yourself up inside four reinforced concrete walls…

https://infosec.exchange/@[email protected]/116987048678237019

    • givesomefucks@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7·
      6 days ago

      OP is from a Twitter clone…

      They most likely have zero idea they even made this post.

      They just can’t stop using hashtags like they’re on twitter despite them actually doing things on the fediverse.

      Any of them that include “#fediverse” makes a post here.

      • Zomg@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        Doesn’t happen on my lemmy account. Maybe it’s a mix of voyage and piefed.

        Anyway, apologies for the initial comment, it was probably seen as rude

        • Pamasich@kbin.earth
          1·
          5 days ago

          I do see the formatting on your instance too, so it is probably voyager that’s the culprit here.

          I assume it relies on the source field on posts for the formatting, which contains the post in Markdown. But that’s a threadiverse feature, Mastodon doesn’t support that. The actual intended way to federate formatting on the protocol is to send it as HTML and then the receiving server interprets the HTML.

          The actual projects like Piefed and Lemmy understand that the Markdown isn’t universal and so fall back to interpreting the HTML when it’s not present. So the post appears as intended there. But I guess apps might not be as thorough there and solely rely on the Markdown with no fallback. So when there is no Markdown, the formatting is lost to them.

          Just my thoughts on the matter though, haven’t actually looked at the code.

          • Al Kath@infosec.exchangeOP
            1·
            5 days ago

            @Pamasich The mastodon used in my instance is an enhanced fork that allows me to write in Markdown.
            In the past, I’ve encountered some Lemmy apps that didn’t compile the formatting correctly (for example, a hashtag at the beginning of a paragraph was interpreted as the # that defines the head, resulting in a paragraph written in huge letters).
            Another problem is the size of “header 1” compared to “header 7”: since these tags were designed for typographic output, it’s not possible to maintain a consistent difference between all seven “headers” on screen, otherwise you’ll end up with a gigantic “header 1.” A good compromise for developers is to focus only on the first two or three headers.

            @[email protected] @fediverse @iftas @[email protected] @[email protected]

        • Pamasich@kbin.earth
          2·
          5 days ago

          Seems like an issue with the app you’re using then.

          My guess is it doesn’t support HTML formatting, which is the fediverse native way of formatting posts. Posts are supposed to be federated as HTML and then the receiving instance interprets the HTML. But the threadiverse also includes a source version of the post which is in Markdown, Mastodon iirc doesn’t do that. The app might be falsely relying on that source version, but nothing OP can do about that when Mastodon doesn’t support it.

          The formatting is there, but probably not in a language your threadiverse-centric app is made to understand.

  • MalycaEnglish
    3·
    5 days ago

    I posted a supportive message in one of those posts and immediately got a message asking for money. Left a bad taste in my mouth. That being said, anyone in Gaza would be that desperate. I’d rather give benefit of the doubt, but I’d rather donate to non profits that disclose their spending and I want that spending to be fair to the cause. I feel like that’s the best way to help.

  • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
    4·
    6 days ago

    As someone recently banned from [email protected], I understand where you’re coming from.

    Apart from the many posts distracting from palestine with russia/ukraine imperial shilling, there are many posts of people “from gaza” looking for help.

    I was banned for pointing out the excessive russia/ukraine tankieism. I had no idea how to address the questionable please from “gaza”, but it’s been another issue with the comm for me.

    Fortunately I just migrated to [email protected] on this instance. I don’t see all that stuff over there.

  • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    6 days ago

    Can’t say I’ve ever encountered this in the fediverse. On Reddit? Yeah. Facebook? Yeah. Tumblr, absolutely. Never seen posts asking for money for Gaza or anywhere else in all the time I’ve been here. What are you guys seeing and where because I am curious but also have doubts.

    • Al Kath@infosec.exchangeOP
      4·
      6 days ago

      @atrielienz You are a Lemmy user and therefore protected for two reasons:

      1. If the Mastodon user doesn’t mention a Lemmy community, the Lemmy user will never see that post: “Gaza Verified” users need to maximize their views and don’t search for communities in the Lemmyverse.
      2. If even “Gaza Verified” users were to post in Lemmy communities asking for money, the community moderators themselves would ban them.
      • INeedMana@piefed.zipEnglish
        2·
        6 days ago

        I do see them from time to time. So in Mastodon’s corner those happen much often? I do have an account but that content presentation never worked with me and I only skim the few accounts I enabled notifications for.
        And posts from accounts verified by “Gaza Verified” look the same?

        I was under assumption that it works more like a Foundation of sorts and help goes through them, and so that all those posts asking for help are most probably scam

      • atrielienz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        6 days ago

        But I also have a (much older) Mastadon account. And I haven’t seen it there either. At least not to an extent where I find it noticeable and problematic.

  • Lorenzo@poliverso.org
    1·
    5 days ago

    @kathsone @iftas oh my God!!! That verification system is ridiculous. I thought #GazaVerified was more serious, but this is a farce!

    But I don’t care! I may be cynical, but I don’t care about those who throw away their money and give it to scammers. To counter the genocidal abomination of the Netanyahu government, we need intelligent people, not gullible people who might be giving money to Israeli trolls.

  • HubertManne@piefed.socialEnglish
    1·
    6 days ago

    have not seen much of this myself. im long term unemployed with a wife that has medical issues. if I see these I might at best wish them well but I don’t have excess resources atm and no indication of it happening anytime in the near future. If I do level out I will be dealing with all sorts of things I have put off that I should not and getting ready to survive the next thing like this.

  • JensSpahnpasta@feddit.orgEnglish
    11·
    5 days ago

    Like it or not: Sending money to individuals in Gaza is a really, really bad idea. You do not want to have a money trail linking you to Hamas. Yes, not everyone in Gaza is part of Hamas, but you really do know nothing about the woman writing you that dm. So if you want to help, donate your money to legitimate aid organizations. They also are able to provide help to those palestinians who are not able to write in English and use the internet to chat with you on the fediverse.

  • mrdown@lemmy.worldEnglish
    36·
    6 days ago

    The allies during world war 2 did worse terrorist acts than resistance groups like Hamas. Like rhe usa did the worse terrorist operstion ever by killing 100 000 japanese in a single day in 1945 firebombings. Palestinians has the right to armed resistance