Mutual aid spam is becoming a problem on the Fediverse.

And to be sure, I’m not against mutual aid. What I am against is spam.

This person has not verified who she is – or even if the profile picture is hers. Additional research on her name states she is a scammer with a record of grifting. I am therefore skeptical that any donations will help anyone in need.

Folks, please be cautious with mutual aid requests. Yes, people sometimes need help. But people also lie.

@fediverse@lemmy.world

  • maplebar@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I blocked MutualAid-related tags months ago because there is only so much begging and sob stories that a person can take.

    I feel sorry for people who have problems and situations so desperate that they feel the best way to fix them is asking random people on the internet for money, but I just don’t know if I can trust them and I absolutely know I can’t help everyone.

  • m_f@discuss.onlineEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    I don’t think mutual aid can work well like that on the internet. Works great in person, works OK for GoFundMe-type stuff like “I had something happen to me that will take a lot of money to fix”. Too easy to scam and grift for small stuff like this though, where for all you know they’re just a very clever dog on the internet.

    • poVoq@slrpnk.netEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Charity is not the same as mutual aid anyways, even though I have also seen “mutual aid” requests on the Fediverse that were clearly asking for charity.

              • XNX@slrpnk.netEnglish
                0·
                5 months ago

                it doesnt and its why i asked lol then i opened the link and saw its over 10 paragraphs

            • Mac@mander.xyzEnglish
              0·
              5 months ago

              Mutual aid is a form of [collaborative] political participation in which people take responsibility for caring for one another and changing political conditions, not just through symbolic acts or putting pressure on their representatives in government but by actually building new social relations that are more survivable.

              Charity comes with eligibility requirements that relate to these moral frameworks of deservingness, such as sobriety, piety, curfews, participation in job training or parenting courses, cooperation with the police, or identifying the paternity of children.
              Nonprofitization has reproduced antidemocratic, racist, and colonial relationships between the winners and losers of extractive, exploitative economic arrangements.

            • TwiddleTwaddle@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
              0·
              5 months ago

              Well you asked a question with a complicated answer. Dean Spade is a prolific and respected writer and organizer, and his thoughts on the matter are relatively concise compared to the volumes upon volumes written by his predecessors in anarchist thought.

              • XNX@slrpnk.netEnglish
                0·
                5 months ago

                im curious about they differentiate it themselves as a person not how an academic defines it.

    • lambalicious@lemmy.sdf.orgEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      I don’t think mutual aid can work well like that on the internet. Works great in person,

      That can be an incredibly privileged position to be in to say. Some people are in situations so bad in their meatspace life that “the random internet” is actually more trustworthy.

    • VerifiedSource@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Dear comrade Laser, ✊★🚩

      the fascist Melon Muskrat needs to be destroyed. The last couple of weeks I have been practicing propaganda of the deed and marked Tesla swasticars appropriately all over my state. Here’s a photo with proof of a recent artwork of mine.

      Fighting this essential antifascist fight in these times of techno-feudal-nazi takeover costs me a lot of time and also money for supplies like spray cans, bus tickets, burner phones, and now also legal costs.

      Last week the fucking pigs (ACAB) caught me when a petit bourgeois snitch reported me and now I’m in legal trouble. The class traitors now want to squeeze 3500 $ from me.

      Your solidarity and mutual aid is essential for me and my comrades to continue the fight against tyranny. Every little thing helps.

      Revolutionary thanks and Antifascist greetings

      Secure Monero XMR transfer: monero:83XjbrEebhaZjgyVYZUjsZ4cF43UhQNHKBd6UUqPwmEuGLEoDGs67ebMg7nDLnj65bCsqKfPwGzuR3a1318u4fQbMWV8U4x

      You can send it using https://stealthex.io or https://changenow.io for example with a credit card or if you own other crypto.

      no pasarán. hasta la victoria siempre.  ✊

  • stuart@social.brainsys.com
    0·
    5 months ago

    @atomicpoet @fediverse

    Thankfully that would almost certainly be a scam in my country and many others.

    I am an asthmatic. Well controlled by a thrice daily cocktail of medicines. All free at the point of need. Paid for by our taxes.

    The true scandal is the countries that make this plea possible.

  • SuperSleuth@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Yep I’ve already gotten a couple messages like this with an image of a random lady attached:

    Hi, I’m Nicole! I’m a proud Polish girl from Toronto (29 y/o)

    I’m currently taking the pre-health sciences program at George Brown College hoping to get into the medical field someday!

    You can add me on Friendica: [REDACTED]

    and join my discord here: [REDACTED]

    • wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Hi, I’m Nicole wizardbeard! I’m a proud aromatic Polish Abyssal girl tube sock with googly eyes from Toronto the space between your walls (29 y/o 50 ft)

      I’m currently taking the pre-health sciences program at George Brown College socks from your dryer hoping to get into the medical field find a broodmother for the spawn that will form the ranks of my holy army someday!

      You can’t add me on Friendica. It’s far too late for that. Far far too late for anyone to do anything to stop this.

      Your socks may be returned to you but they may never be the same.

  • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    This is nothing, on hexbear there’s a person pretending to be like half a dozen different Palestinians with different fraudulent GoFundMe. They cook up a new persona like every other week using pictures they scrape from the media and then run it through an AI filter.

    • rustyfish@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Same on Bluesky. And they are everywhere. Couple of years ago some accounts did this multiple times on Imgur. Even today occasionally some pop up again, but now the users are quick to call them out…with the admins doing jack shit. Which is classic for that site.

      When coming across a sob story my knee jerk reaction is “bullshit”. If you want to give money to charity, do so through a reputable organisation. And don’t trust any rando on the internet.

  • bss03@infosec.pubEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Don’t boost it. If it violates your instance’s rules (e.g. it’s a scam), report it. Unfollow people that boost it. Mute/block the poster or their content.

    I don’t might seeing it, and I don’t think it is a problem (yet).

    Agree that caution is warranted for any request of funds, whatever the requestor wants to call it.

  • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
    0·
    5 months ago

    At the beginning of the pan, someone was selling nudes to cover expenses. I think I sent twenty bucks because I could and she was cute and whatever. But then the person started messaging me about trying to get more money (for her and her sister) and it just felt like a scam and I became very cynical about it.

    Btw, I slept funny last night and I have a neck cramp. Please send money. /s

  • rarbg@lemmy.zipEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Lol, comments in this thread forgot the ‘mutual’ part of ‘mutual aid’ and miss the point of this post (scams in mutual aid groups)

    If you think mutual aid is a one-way street (/ don’t benefit from it), is not for you, block and move on

  • sircac@lemmy.worldEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    There are needs and needs, I refuse to help a money begger unless is a close friend which I can control how is the best I can do for him, money being the last resource. Instead I always demand for social programs and services sustained by taxes to support those in real need (survival needs) unconditionally.

    I would sleep much better if part of my tax contribution (together that of anybody in function of their resources) goes to grant the minimum for a “dignity survival” to any human being regardless of their returned contribution, with programs for reinsertion and mental support so they have the best chances to reach eventually a “dignity life”.

    And, if still they cannot but just “survive” for the rest of their lives, I still want to fund it and give them the security to do it with dignity until the very end.

  • AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.mlEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    POLICE! POLICE! PLEASE HELP!

    I SAW A HOMELESS PERSON!!! THEY WERE ASKING FOR MONEY

    PLEASE REMOVE THESE EYESORES

    • surewhynotlem@lemmy.worldEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      This is why I turn off Google spam filtering. My attention is worth nothing so everyone who can message me should be able to.

        • surewhynotlem@lemmy.worldEnglish
          0·
          5 months ago

          Imagine being so naive that you think that’s a real person.

          But if we’re not being snarky for a moment… It’s trivially easy to create a bot to do exactly what this person is doing. Spam others with begging for money and a bunch of sob stories.

  • Clot@lemm.eeEnglish
    0·
    5 months ago

    Yeah, the other day I saw a lot of posts like “I am from palestine, my home is destroyed please donate to help”… Spam is probably the significant problem on fedi

    • irelephant [he/him]🍭@lemm.eeEnglish
      0·
      5 months ago

      Funnily enough, I haven’t seen many instances delicated to just spam, like there was conerns about. Its mostly from .world or mastodon.social