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(Anti-) Social Media: Scams / Shams / Shills On Facebook & Other Sites

MorningAngel

Justified & Ancient
Joined
May 14, 2015
Messages
3,183
I have noticed lately on comments sections on Facebook that if someone is sh*t stirring if you go into their profile more often than not they have no friends. No one on Facebook has no friends, what's the point? So the whole point of these profiles is to troll people. But my question is are these individuals or some organisation just trying to stir up trouble?
 
I've seen several different "agitators" post (on different threads) a nearly identical response in opposition to a particular viewpoint. The post included my nanew (I assume names are plugged in to make it seem more "genuine). It looked like it had been cut and pasted with a minor edit.

It stopped when I called one of them on it.
 
This is about Twitter, but I'm guessing there are what you're calling "professional" trolls on FB too:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeand...es-not-make-you-relevant-leslie-jones-twitter

I suspect nobody gets paid to fire off abusive messages, but the thought that you could be rewarded for this behaviour in something more than "Likes" is worrying. Especially when social media seems to be directing opinion in the modern world.
 
I've seen several different "agitators" post (on different threads) a nearly identical response in opposition to a particular viewpoint. The post included my nanew (I assume names are plugged in to make it seem more "genuine). It looked like it had been cut and pasted with a minor edit.

It stopped when I called one of them on it.

Interesting. I wonder if this is why people's accounts get cloned.
 
Another fake-looking type of Facebooker I've noticed are the pointlessly offended asking for sympathy.

As an example, I saw a photo of what looked like a hearse pulling a woodchipper, implying that this was a new type of funeral -

woodchipper funeral.jpg

This was on a jokes page. People had posted that as they had recently lost a relation it wasn't funny.
There were whole conversations about it, like a support group. On a Facebook jokes page.

On another page, about people's ghost stories, someone mentioned a possible haunting caused by the historical rape and murder of a woman. This should, someone claimed, have had a 'trigger' warning because SHE had been assaulted and it was all flooding back now...
On a page about ghosts where traumatic events are pretty much bound to be discussed.

There seems to be a lot of this POOR ME POOR ME ME ME crap. Most undignified.
 
Wow! Who'da thunk a ghost story might involve a savage attack and murder?

I have some relatives who constantly "share" indignant posts about grossly misrepresented, if not completely fictional acts by strangers in other parts of the country. I've given up trying to show them how to check that stuff out. They seem to like having crap like that handy to stoke their anger. Needless to say, I haven't seen most of them in decades. I'm "friends" with them out of duty or misplaced manners or something. Unfollowing them works well, but just ignoring Farcebook is even better.
 
Another fake-looking type of Facebooker I've noticed are the pointlessly offended asking for sympathy.

As an example, I saw a photo of what looked like a hearse pulling a woodchipper, implying that this was a new type of funeral -

View attachment 35341

This was on a jokes page. People had posted that as they had recently lost a relation it wasn't funny.
There were whole conversations about it, like a support group. On a Facebook jokes page.

On another page, about people's ghost stories, someone mentioned a possible haunting caused by the historical rape and murder of a woman. This should, someone claimed, have had a 'trigger' warning because SHE had been assaulted and it was all flooding back now...
On a page about ghosts where traumatic events are pretty much bound to be discussed.

There seems to be a lot of this POOR ME POOR ME ME ME crap. Most undignified.

I do remember when you used to watch TV and you weren’t warned about things. If you didn’t like them you turned off.

Going back to Facebook I do wonder if all these COVID deniers are real or are some there to cause trouble and undermine things.
 
Wow! Who'da thunk a ghost story might involve a savage attack and murder?

I have some relatives who constantly "share" indignant posts about grossly misrepresented, if not completely fictional acts by strangers in other parts of the country. I've given up trying to show them how to check that stuff out. They seem to like having crap like that handy to stoke their anger. Needless to say, I haven't seen most of them in decades. I'm "friends" with them out of duty or misplaced manners or something. Unfollowing them works well, but just ignoring Farcebook is even better.
Did you know you can still be friends but not have to see what they put up?
 
Did you know you can still be friends but not have to see what they put up?
I have a few friends like that. One in person is the kindest, most thoughtful chap you can meet but on FB has fallen down the Antivaxx rabbit hole. Others whom I know are straight up and likeable just repost any old bollocks, especially specious "wasn't it all wonderful before the foreigners and equality laws ruined it" type posts. I'm sure we all have a soft spot for George & Mildred but that doesn't mean we also miss National Front rallies or "My Next Door Neighbour Isn't White".

All that said I did purge my friend list recently. There were plenty I hardly know and never interact with, so they're gone.
 
I have a few friends like that. One in person is the kindest, most thoughtful chap you can meet but on FB has fallen down the Antivaxx rabbit hole. Others whom I know are straight up and likeable just repost any old bollocks, especially specious "wasn't it all wonderful before the foreigners and equality laws ruined it" type posts. I'm sure we all have a soft spot for George & Mildred but that doesn't mean we also miss National Front rallies or "My Next Door Neighbour Isn't White".

All that said I did purge my friend list recently. There were plenty I hardly know and never interact with, so they're gone.
My introduction to fb was when a high school friend now living abroad suggested we we start a group for the high school class so we could talk. Good. Then several people I had nothing to do with in HS friended me and I didn't know enough to ignore them and to disable notices. The day after, one of them in Colorado posted that she was settling in on the couch watching a movie. Partially good. Then she talked about the movie. Not good. Then she posted about how she loved hot chocolate and I found the unfriend button. And then I remembered what she does for a living - she's a nuclear physicist.
 
I've noticed some seemingly astroturfed Facebook activity, actually. I don't know if it's bots, one of those company-run "try to get people in a particular demographic/place to vote a certain way" type ops (I'd be an idiot to think Cambridge was the only one), or what. But we have spurts of accounts posting specifically screenshotted pictures of other Facebook posts (which may still exist at the time, but usually will not in six months or so) that describe urban-legend-style "someone tried to kidnap me/my sister/my friend/my daughter in the parking lot! Look out, the cops say this is normal at (x place) (x city)!". It's almost templated. Some were particularly obviously old urban legend stuff-- the "don't touch a shirt on your car, you'll get robbed" one. As my state has transparency laws, it's really clear that that we do not have a kidnapping trafficking epidemic, and that bad things that do happen to people here do not exclusively targeting white female adults in parking lots.
My question is, what's the point of faking paranoia about attacks on women? It hurts anti-trafficking efforts because it's not actually happening this way (and kids who get kidnapped-- well, that's not grown white women with cars, which would be the fictive subjects here); and it takes away awareness regarding victims who fall under the criminal laws, so it doesn't help the reform and aid they need (it perpetuates the idea that, again, grown white women are being kidnapped into trafficking, and that this is how that is peopled). It's not like the made-up craft videos, because there's no outside links to monetize. Is someone actually willing to pay money to make sure people in my state don't believe trafficking works the way it does? Because that's a horrifying idea.
 
I've noticed some seemingly astroturfed Facebook activity, actually. I don't know if it's bots, one of those company-run "try to get people in a particular demographic/place to vote a certain way" type ops (I'd be an idiot to think Cambridge was the only one), or what. But we have spurts of accounts posting specifically screenshotted pictures of other Facebook posts (which may still exist at the time, but usually will not in six months or so) that describe urban-legend-style "someone tried to kidnap me/my sister/my friend/my daughter in the parking lot! Look out, the cops say this is normal at (x place) (x city)!". It's almost templated. Some were particularly obviously old urban legend stuff-- the "don't touch a shirt on your car, you'll get robbed" one. As my state has transparency laws, it's really clear that that we do not have a kidnapping trafficking epidemic, and that bad things that do happen to people here do not exclusively targeting white female adults in parking lots.
My question is, what's the point of faking paranoia about attacks on women? It hurts anti-trafficking efforts because it's not actually happening this way (and kids who get kidnapped-- well, that's not grown white women with cars, which would be the fictive subjects here); and it takes away awareness regarding victims who fall under the criminal laws, so it doesn't help the reform and aid they need (it perpetuates the idea that, again, grown white women are being kidnapped into trafficking, and that this is how that is peopled). It's not like the made-up craft videos, because there's no outside links to monetize. Is someone actually willing to pay money to make sure people in my state don't believe trafficking works the way it does? Because that's a horrifying idea.

It’s as effective as ‘put a heart on your wall but don’t tell anyone why’ for awareness or a cure for cancer. No point either.
 
I've noticed some seemingly astroturfed Facebook activity, actually. I don't know if it's bots, one of those company-run "try to get people in a particular demographic/place to vote a certain way" type ops (I'd be an idiot to think Cambridge was the only one), or what. But we have spurts of accounts posting specifically screenshotted pictures of other Facebook posts (which may still exist at the time, but usually will not in six months or so) that describe urban-legend-style "someone tried to kidnap me/my sister/my friend/my daughter in the parking lot! Look out, the cops say this is normal at (x place) (x city)!". It's almost templated. Some were particularly obviously old urban legend stuff-- the "don't touch a shirt on your car, you'll get robbed" one. As my state has transparency laws, it's really clear that that we do not have a kidnapping trafficking epidemic, and that bad things that do happen to people here do not exclusively targeting white female adults in parking lots.
My question is, what's the point of faking paranoia about attacks on women? It hurts anti-trafficking efforts because it's not actually happening this way (and kids who get kidnapped-- well, that's not grown white women with cars, which would be the fictive subjects here); and it takes away awareness regarding victims who fall under the criminal laws, so it doesn't help the reform and aid they need (it perpetuates the idea that, again, grown white women are being kidnapped into trafficking, and that this is how that is peopled). It's not like the made-up craft videos, because there's no outside links to monetize. Is someone actually willing to pay money to make sure people in my state don't believe trafficking works the way it does? Because that's a horrifying idea.
Seems to me that they fall in two categories. Those with a "Romanian bots" origin, groups of people paid by the item to make some kind of point by appealing to something other than the reader's reason, and then those same people who believe and spread absurd stories such as from qanon because it gives them a self and something to do that feels important. The false stories of women being kidnapped fall into the latter - the poster thinks they are attracting attention on fb.
 
I've noticed some seemingly astroturfed Facebook activity, actually. I don't know if it's bots, one of those company-run "try to get people in a particular demographic/place to vote a certain way" type ops (I'd be an idiot to think Cambridge was the only one), or what. But we have spurts of accounts posting specifically screenshotted pictures of other Facebook posts (which may still exist at the time, but usually will not in six months or so) that describe urban-legend-style "someone tried to kidnap me/my sister/my friend/my daughter in the parking lot! Look out, the cops say this is normal at (x place) (x city)!". It's almost templated. Some were particularly obviously old urban legend stuff-- the "don't touch a shirt on your car, you'll get robbed" one. As my state has transparency laws, it's really clear that that we do not have a kidnapping trafficking epidemic, and that bad things that do happen to people here do not exclusively targeting white female adults in parking lots.
My question is, what's the point of faking paranoia about attacks on women? It hurts anti-trafficking efforts because it's not actually happening this way (and kids who get kidnapped-- well, that's not grown white women with cars, which would be the fictive subjects here); and it takes away awareness regarding victims who fall under the criminal laws, so it doesn't help the reform and aid they need (it perpetuates the idea that, again, grown white women are being kidnapped into trafficking, and that this is how that is peopled). It's not like the made-up craft videos, because there's no outside links to monetize. Is someone actually willing to pay money to make sure people in my state don't believe trafficking works the way it does? Because that's a horrifying idea.
It's like-harvesting. Reacting or commenting (even with a 'laugh' or to point out it's rubbish) gets your name on a saleable list.

I do believe @Stormkhan first explained this to me.
 
Another fake-looking type of Facebooker I've noticed are the pointlessly offended asking for sympathy.

As an example, I saw a photo of what looked like a hearse pulling a woodchipper, implying that this was a new type of funeral -

View attachment 35341

This was on a jokes page. People had posted that as they had recently lost a relation it wasn't funny.
There were whole conversations about it, like a support group. On a Facebook jokes page.

On another page, about people's ghost stories, someone mentioned a possible haunting caused by the historical rape and murder of a woman. This should, someone claimed, have had a 'trigger' warning because SHE had been assaulted and it was all flooding back now...
On a page about ghosts where traumatic events are pretty much bound to be discussed.

There seems to be a lot of this POOR ME POOR ME ME ME crap. Most undignified.
This wasn't Facebook, but I had a review of one of my books where a lady (who had obviously been subjected to a sexual assault at some point) left a lengthy and scathing review where she highlighted a plot point, called it out as rape and marked the book down several stars. There was no rape in the book and if she'd read between the lines she would have realised what was really going on. But her knee-jerk response was 'there was sex, it must have been rape'.

Sometimes, I suppose, people become sensitized to an issue in a way that means any reference to something, even obliquely, can trigger them. It must be hard. I have a personal hate for the 'trigger warning' for books, I mean, how are we, as authors, supposed to know what might, potentially trigger someone? I am 'triggered' by the euthanasia of dogs, I don't demand that everyone TWs it or leaves it out of their writing.
 
This wasn't Facebook, but I had a review of one of my books where a lady (who had obviously been subjected to a sexual assault at some point) left a lengthy and scathing review where she highlighted a plot point, called it out as rape and marked the book down several stars. There was no rape in the book and if she'd read between the lines she would have realised what was really going on. But her knee-jerk response was 'there was sex, it must have been rape'.

Sometimes, I suppose, people become sensitized to an issue in a way that means any reference to something, even obliquely, can trigger them. It must be hard. I have a personal hate for the 'trigger warning' for books, I mean, how are we, as authors, supposed to know what might, potentially trigger someone? I am 'triggered' by the euthanasia of dogs, I don't demand that everyone TWs it or leaves it out of their writing.

Yup, exactly. People have awful experiences and that's hard luck, but stuffing it down everyone else's throats is tedious.
I speak as someone who had what many would agree was one of the worst experiences possible, one I would wish on nobody else. People who don't know me well have no idea. It's about dignity.

(Off-topic for a minute, I can remember discussing the 'marital rape' scene in Gone With The Wind.
He doesn't rape her, he gives her the time of her life at time when women of her class weren't supposed to enjoy sex. That's all explained in the book.)
 
It's like-harvesting. Reacting or commenting (even with a 'laugh' or to point out it's rubbish) gets your name on a saleable list.

I do believe @Stormkhan first explained this to me.

Every time I think, hmm, maybe I should start using "Like" buttons (on here or elsewhere), stuff like this makes me feart.
 
It's like-harvesting. Reacting or commenting (even with a 'laugh' or to point out it's rubbish) gets your name on a saleable list.
I do believe @Stormkhan first explained this to me.
In effect, it's influencing the analytics. On You Tube now, most regular creators (read as: those who want to earn money) ask viewers to "Like, Subscribe, Hit the Notify Icon" and, if you feel reckless "Comment". As one recent video I watched (entertaining but obviously click-baity) put it: "Hey, do this! It is little for you to do but it means so much to us!"
 
I refuse utterly to have anything to do with trigger warnings except as a (lame) joke
Some of them, especially in books, have been the topic of of a lot of author debate. How do WE know what may 'trigger' a reader? And what if the 'trigger warning' ruins the twist in the book? How much onus do we put on our readers to take care when choosing their reading material, and how much responsibility do we bear for making sure the reader isn't triggered?
 
This wasn't Facebook, but I had a review of one of my books where a lady (who had obviously been subjected to a sexual assault at some point) left a lengthy and scathing review where she highlighted a plot point, called it out as rape and marked the book down several stars. There was no rape in the book and if she'd read between the lines she would have realised what was really going on. But her knee-jerk response was 'there was sex, it must have been rape'.

On my daily Kindle email a few years ago I was offered a saucy book about 'forbidden love'.
Not my normal choice but I went for it, only to find it was about consenting adult sibling incest. o_O

My review was scathing. 'This came as a shock. Who'd want to do this? I mean, have you SEEN my brothers?'

I was triggered! :chuckle:
 
In effect, it's influencing the analytics. On You Tube now, most regular creators (read as: those who want to earn money) ask viewers to "Like, Subscribe, Hit the Notify Icon" and, if you feel reckless "Comment". As one recent video I watched (entertaining but obviously click-baity) put it: "Hey, do this! It is little for you to do but it means so much to us!"

Techy's a bit obsessed with this.

I listened to a nice podcast and he saw me give it stars, and said 'So you're liking men's jackets now?'
He thought I was rating the photo in the advert on the page. Sometimes I worry about him.
 
Every time I think, hmm, maybe I should start using "Like" buttons (on here or elsewhere), stuff like this makes me feart.
Don't worry. Just use personal judgement.
The vast majority click on buttons because a) it costs them nothing to do so, b) they don't understand about analytics and such, c) they actually do understand and wish to help. It's a matter of ... well ... informed action.
There's several You Tube channels where I like the presenters, I like the videos and I have considered where they are coming from. I will click "Like" because I like the video. I click "Subscribe" because I wish to support said channel. I comment because I have something to say, even if it's a lighthearted quip. But I won't watch a video, be interested, then - well - invest any more attention until I know further.
 
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