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fabaulti · 1 year ago

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I think most of us should take the whole ai scraping situation as a sign that we should maybe stop giving google/facebook/big corps all our data and look into alternatives that actually value your privacy.

i know this is easier said than done because everybody under the sun seems to use these services, but I promise you it’s not impossible. In fact, I made a list of a few alternatives to popular apps and services, alternatives that are privacy first, open source and don’t sell your data.

right off the bat I suggest you stop using gmail. it’s trash and not secure at all. google can read your emails. in fact, google has acces to all the data on your account and while what they do with it is already shady, I don’t even want to know what the whole ai situation is going to bring. a good alternative to a few google services is skiff. they provide a secure, e3ee mail service along with a workspace that can easily import google documents, a calendar and 10 gb free storage. i’ve been using it for a while and it’s great.

a good alternative to google drive is either koofr or filen. I use filen because everything you upload on there is end to end encrypted with zero knowledge. they offer 10 gb of free storage and really affordable lifetime plans.

google docs? i don’t know her. instead, try cryptpad. I don’t have the spoons to list all the great features of this service, you just have to believe me. nothing you write there will be used to train ai and you can share it just as easily. if skiff is too limited for you and you also need stuff like sheets or forms, cryptpad is here for you. the only downside i could think of is that they don’t have a mobile app, but the site works great in a browser too.

since there is no real alternative to youtube I recommend watching your little slime videos through a streaming frontend like freetube or new pipe. besides the fact that they remove ads, they also stop google from tracking what you watch. there is a bit of functionality loss with these services, but if you just want to watch videos privately they’re great.

if you’re looking for an alternative to google photos that is secure and end to end encrypted you might want to look into stingle, although in my experience filen’s photos tab works pretty well too.

oh, also, for the love of god, stop using whatsapp, facebook messenger or instagram for messaging. just stop. signal and telegram are literally here and they’re free. spread the word, educate your friends, ask them if they really want anyone to snoop around their private conversations.

regarding browser, you know the drill. throw google chrome/edge in the trash (they really basically spyware disguised as browsers) and download either librewolf or brave. mozilla can be a great secure option too, with a bit of tinkering.

if you wanna get a vpn (and I recommend you do) be wary that some of them are scammy. do your research, read their terms and conditions, familiarise yourself with their model. if you don’t wanna do that and are willing to trust my word, go with mullvad. they don’t keep any logs. it’s 5 euros a month with no different pricing plans or other bullshit.

lastly, whatever alternative you decide on, what matters most is that you don’t keep all your data in one place. don’t trust a service to take care of your emails, documents, photos and messages. store all these things in different, trustworthy (preferably open source) places. there is absolutely no reason google has to know everything about you.

do your own research as well, don’t just trust the first vpn service your favourite youtube gets sponsored by. don’t trust random tech blogs to tell you what the best cloud storage service is — they get good money for advertising one or the other. compare shit on your own or ask a tech savvy friend to help you. you’ve got this.

#internet privacy #privacy #vpn #google docs #ai scraping #psa #ai #archive of our own #ao3 writer #mine #textpost

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hatgame · 5 months ago

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*Help my family*

Hello,

my name is Ahmed and I collect donations for my family.

We lost our home in Gaza City and were displaced in Rafah without the basic needs proper to life such as shelter, food and water. We are desperately looking for any kind of financing to rebuild our demolished house. Even if I cou...

Read more and donate here. Forward this message to your contacts to help this campaign reach its goal!

https://www.gofundme.com/f/i-want-to-evacuate-my-family-from-the-gaza-strip?utm_medium=social&utm_source=whatsapp&utm_campaign=p_nacp+share-sheet

This is a vetted campaign (Line 161). At the time of writing, €9,375 out of €100k has been raised.

I usher everybody reading to donate to Ahmed. I will be providing artwork of various effort and virtually any topic to everyone who sends me proof of donation - OF ANY AMOUNT, NO MATTER HOW LITTLE. Disallow feeling inconsequential or insulting discourage you from donating. You can and you will change peoples lives. Please spread this post and encourage others to donate, too.

I have edited my post advertising donation commissions to include your campaign

#text #i apologize for copypasting the text from my other post i dont think i can word myself any better than it #i entirely hope you reach your goal as quickly as possible #art for palestine #ahmed8311

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allthebrazilianpolitics · 24 days ago

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‘We built Brazil’: how descendants of enslaved Africans have helped shape the country

A new book explores the way Black people are playing a transformative role in the fight for equality despite centuries of enslavement and continued neglect

“A cook for a small family is needed. Preferably white,” said an advertisement for a job vacancy in São Paulo, published in 1912 in one of Brazil’s largest newspapers.

In 2019, in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas Gerais state, a message in a WhatsApp group for caregivers advertised 10 positions at an agency: “The only requirements: must not be black or fat, and need at least three months of experience.”

The century separating the two job ads is a stark example of how more than 350 years of slavery continue to affect Brazilian society: Black people were, and in many cases still are, overlooked even for the lowest-paid positions.

Despite making up more than half of the population (55%), Afro-Brazilians form the base of every socioeconomic indicator, overwhelmingly dominating the statistics on hunger, poverty, gender-based violence and the victims of homicides committed by criminals or the police.

#brazil #brazilian politics #politics #antiracism #history #image description in alt #mod nise da silveira

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grits-galraisedinthesouth · 3 months ago

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X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users. "Brazil blocks Musk’s X after company refuses to name local representative amid feud with judge"

"The justice said the platform will stay suspended until it complies with his orders, and also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using VPNs to access it."

“When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts,” the company wrote.

X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users.

The looming shutdown is not unprecedented in Brazil.

Lone Brazilian judges shut down Meta’s WhatsApp, the nation’s most widely used messaging app, several times in 2015 and 2016 due to the company’s refusal to comply with police requests for user data. In 2022, de Moraes threatened the messaging app Telegram with a nationwide shutdown, arguing it had repeatedly ignored Brazilian authorities’ requests to block profiles and provide information. He ordered Telegram to appoint a local representative; the company ultimately complied and stayed online.

X and its former incarnation, Twitter, have been banned in several countries — mostly authoritarian regimes such as Russia, China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Venezuela and Turkmenistan. Other countries, such as Pakistan, Turkey and Egypt, have also temporarily suspended X before, usually to quell dissent and unrest. Twitter was banned in Egypt after the Arab Spring uprisings, which some dubbed the "Twitter revolution," but it has since been restored.

A search Friday on X showed hundreds of Brazilian users inquiring about VPNs that could potentially enable them to continue using the platform by making it appear they were logging on from outside the country. It was not immediately clear how Brazilian authorities would police this practice and impose fines cited by de Moraes.

By GABRIELA SÁ PESSOA, BARBARA ORTUTAY and DAVID BILLERAugust 30, 2024

SAO PAULO — (AP) — Brazil started blocking Elon Musk's social media platform X early Saturday, making it largely inaccessible on both the web and through mobile apps after the billionaire refused to name a legal representative to the country.

The move escalates a monthslong feud between Musk and a Brazilian Supreme Court justice over free speech, far-right accounts and misinformation. Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered the suspension on Friday.

To block X, Brazil’s telecommunications regulator, Anatel, told internet service providers to suspend users’ access to the social media platform. As of Saturday after midnight local time, major operators had begun doing so.

De Moraes had warned Musk on Wednesday night that X could be blocked in Brazil if he failed to comply with his order to name a representative, and established a 24-hour deadline. The company hasn’t had a representative in the country since earlier this month.

“Elon Musk showed his total disrespect for Brazilian sovereignty and, in particular, for the judiciary, setting himself up as a true supranational entity and immune to the laws of each country,” de Moraes wrote in his decision on Friday.

The justice said the platform will stay suspended until it complies with his orders, and also set a daily fine of 50,000 reais ($8,900) for people or companies using VPNs to access it.

In a later ruling, he backtracked on his initial decision to establish a 5-day deadline for internet service providers themselves — and not just the telecommunications regulator — to block access to X, as well as his directive for app stores to remove virtual private networks, or VPNs.

Brazil is one of the biggest markets for X, which has struggled with the loss of advertisers since Musk purchased the former Twitter in 2022. Market research group Emarketer says some 40 million Brazilians, roughly one-fifth of the population, access X at least once per month.

“This is a sad day for X users around the world, especially those in Brazil, who are being denied access to our platform. I wish it did not have to come to this – it breaks my heart,” X’s CEO Linda Yaccarino said Friday night, adding that Brazil is failing to uphold its constitution’s pledge to forbid censorship.

X had posted on its official Global Government Affairs page late Thursday that it expected X to be shut down by de Moraes, “simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents.”

X has clashed with de Moraes over its reluctance to comply with orders to block users.

Accounts that the platform previously has shut down on Brazilian orders include lawmakers affiliated with former President Jair Bolsonaro’s right-wing party and activists accused of undermining Brazilian democracy. X’s lawyers in April sent a document to the Supreme Court in April, saying that since 2019 it had suspended or blocked 226 users.

In his decision Friday, de Moraes' cited Musk's statements as evidence that X's conduct “clearly intends to continue to encourage posts with extremism, hate speech and anti-democratic discourse, and to try to withdraw them from jurisdictional control.”

In April, de Moraes included Musk as a target in an ongoing investigation over the dissemination of fake news and opened a separate investigation into the executive for alleged obstruction.

Musk, a self-proclaimed “free speech absolutist," has repeatedly claimed the justice’s actions amount to censorship, and his argument has been echoed by Brazil’s political right. He has often insulted de Moraes on his platform, characterizing him as a dictator and tyrant.

De Moraes�� defenders have said his actions aimed at X have been lawful, supported by most of the court’s full bench and have served to protect democracy at a time it is imperiled. He wrote Friday that his ruling is based on Brazilian law requiring internet services companies to have representation in the country so they can be notified when there are relevant court decisions and take requisite action — specifying the takedown of illicit content posted by users, and an anticipated churn of misinformation during October municipal elections.

The looming shutdown is not unprecedented in Brazil.

“This is an unusual measure, but its main objective is to ensure that the court order to suspend the platform's operation is, in fact, effective," Filipe Medon, a specialist in digital law and professor at the law school of Getulio Vargas Foundation, a university in Rio de Janeiro, told The Associated Press.

Mariana de Souza Alves Lima, known by her handle MariMoon, showed her 1.4 million followers on X where she intends to go, posting a screenshot of rival social network BlueSky.

On Thursday evening, Starlink, Musk’s satellite internet service provider, said on X that de Moraes this week froze its finances, preventing it from doing any transactions in the country where it has more than 250,000 customers.

“This order is based on an unfounded determination that Starlink should be responsible for the fines levied—unconstitutionally—against X. It was issued in secret and without affording Starlink any of the due process of law guaranteed by the Constitution of Brazil. We intend to address the matter legally,” Starlink said in its statement. The law firm representing Starlink told the AP that the company appealed, but wouldn’t make further comment.

Musk replied to people sharing the reports of the freeze, adding insults directed at de Moraes. “This guy @Alexandre is an outright criminal of the worst kind, masquerading as a judge,” he wrote.

Musk later posted on X that SpaceX, which runs Starlink, will provide free internet service in Brazil “until the matter is resolved” since “we cannot receive payment, but don’t want to cut anyone off.”

In his decision, de Moraes said he ordered the freezing of Starlink’s assets, as X didn't have enough money in its accounts to cover mounting fines, and reasoning that the two companies are part of the same economic group.

While ordering X’s suspension followed warnings and fines and so was appropriate, taking action against Starlink seems “highly questionable,” said Luca Belli, coordinator of the Getulio Vargas Foundation’s Technology and Society Center.

“Yes, of course, they have the same owner, Elon Musk, but it is discretionary to consider Starlink as part of the same economic group as Twitter (X). They have no connection, they have no integration,” Belli said.

___

Ortutay reported from San Francisco and Biller from Rio. AP writer Mauricio Savarese contributed from Sao Paulo.

Soon, we expect Judge Alexandre de Moraes will order X to be shut down in Brazil – simply because we would not comply with his illegal orders to censor his political opponents. These enemies include a duly elected Senator and a 16-year-old girl, among others. When we attempted to defend ourselves in court, Judge de Moraes threatened our Brazilian legal representative with imprisonment. Even after she resigned, he froze all of her bank accounts. Our challenges against his manifestly illegal actions were either dismissed or ignored. Judge de Moraes’ colleagues on the Supreme Court are either unwilling or unable to stand up to him. We are absolutely not insisting that other countries have the same free speech laws as the United States. The fundamental issue at stake here is that Judge de Moraes demands we break Brazil’s own laws. We simply won’t do that. In the days to come, we will publish all of Judge de Moraes’ illegal demands and all related court filings in the interest of transparency. Unlike other social media and technology platforms, we will not comply in secret with illegal orders. To our users in Brazil and around the world, X remains committed to protecting your freedom of speech. ------------------- Em breve, esperamos que o Ministro Alexandre de Moraes ordene o bloqueio do X no Brasil – simplesmente porque não cumprimos suas ordens ilegais para censurar seus opositores políticos. Dentre esses opositores estão um Senador devidamente eleito e uma jovem de 16 anos, entre outros. Quando tentamos nos defender no tribunal, o Ministro ameaçou prender nossa representante legal no Brasil. Mesmo após sua renúncia, ele congelou todas as suas contas bancárias. Nossas contestações contra suas ações manifestamente ilegais foram rejeitadas ou ignoradas. Os colegas do Ministro Alexandre de Moraes no Supremo Tribunal Federal estão ou impossibilitados de ou não querem enfrentá-lo. Não estamos absolutamente insistindo que outros países tenham as mesmas leis de liberdade de expressão dos Estados Unidos. A questão fundamental em jogo aqui é que o Ministro Alexandre de Moraes exige que violemos as próprias leis do Brasil. Simplesmente não faremos isso. Nos próximos dias, publicaremos todas as exigências ilegais do Ministro e todos os documentos judiciais relacionados, para fins de transparência. Ao contrário de outras plataformas de mídia social e tecnologia, não cumpriremos ordens ilegais em segredo. Aos nossos usuários no Brasil e ao redor do mundo, o X continua comprometido em proteger sua liberdade de expressão.

#Brazil #censorship #freedom of speech #free speech #twitter #elon musk #x #1984 #Alex Huxley #george orwell

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ariarose2222 · 23 days ago

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Combating Misinformation: Strategies for Effective Public Health Communication: Techniques to Counter False Information

In the modern world, information has been heavily digitalised to keep up with the development and expansion of the Internet. As classes move online and cash payments become simplified to a mere QR code on a piece of paper, public health campaigns have followed suite. Public health advertisements are quite effective too, with people who have been shown said advertisements being 50% more likely to search of information regarding weight loss (Yom-Tov et al., 2018).

However, all things in life must come to a balance, as the effectiveness of public health campaigns is not without drawbacks. The ease of accessibility of the Internet along with the low barrier of posting information online about public health has made it very easy for false information to spread. I’m very sure many of us have received chain messages with clearly false information before and wondered how many people have received and shared these messages before it reached us. This issue is rampant enough that big companies such as WhatsApp have to make public statements debunking false information about their platform (WhatsApp, 2012).

Moving forward, now that the problem has been identified, what are the solutions? First and foremost, it is essential to clear up that it is practically impossible to completely prevent the spread of misinformation through the Internet as it would require dictatorship-like monitoring of the general population’s online activity. There is no prevention and there is no cure but there are ways to bandage the issue at hand.

One of the techniques to counter false information would be to start at the root of it: people. If the general population are educated on how to properly identify false information, less misinformation would be shared around and in turn less misinformation would be posted on the Internet in the first place. This method might be simple in theory but realistically, it is very hard to fully implement as it would require people to properly educate themselves on whatever topic that is related to any piece of false information they come across. The effort to look up articles and research is often time simply not worth the effort when social media users simply want to consume content at a fast pace without worrying too much about the details of what they share. This is not to undermine the effectiveness of public service announcement (PSA) posts from verified sources (Aziz, 2022) educating the population on misinformation and redirecting them to the correct information, but it is just not a be-all and end-all solution.

A second method would be community-based regulation of the information posted online. While research articles are often peer-reviewed before being published, the comments section of public health information posted online can act as a very primitive form of peer-reviewing. If any entity posts misinformation online, they are opening themselves up to a multitude of ways to be corrected, from the comments section to private messages. The audience of the posts would then witness the correction and potentially pass on the correction to fellow social media users who have been affected by the misinformation (Vraga & Bode, 2020). The correction does not even have to come from individuals either as verified public health entities are free to create social media accounts to join the battle against misinformation as well. Twitter (now known as X) has implemented a system known as “Community Notes” that allow users to add notes to posts to provide additional context or correct the information in the post should it be false or misleading (X Corp., 2024). This method is more effective than the first method listed above as it lessens the workload of dispelling misinformation from being an individual responsibility to the collective of digital citizens. Just as it takes a village to raise a child, sometimes it can take the multiple warnings from all walks of the community to stop people from taking horse dewormer in hopes of treating Covid-19 (BBC News, 2021).

Should the general population prove to be unreliable when it comes to fact checking against false information, this is where organisations and governmental bodies come in such as the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission which seeks to regulate the communications and multimedia industry. These large entities are able to push for regulation of information online through the terms of use for social media platforms or anti-fake news laws. Unfortunately, when people in places of power dictate the amount of regulation for the rest of society, problems tend to arise. A prime example would be the repeal of the “fake news” ordinance in 2021 in Malaysia in fear of it being abused to violate Malaysian citizen’s freedom of speech (Malaysia: Repeal “fake News” Emergency Ordinance - ARTICLE 19, 2021).

In conclusion, the spread of false information regarding public health will be a never-ending issue and there is no single solution to counter it. Rather multiple steps have to be taken all at once and we as digital citizens must keep ourselves in check and fact check the information that we share on social media.

References

Aziz, S. (2022, July 13). “Authorities will never call you” — Here’s how to avoid being tricked by scams & fake news. SAYS. https://says.com/my/tech/tips-to-prevent-scams-and-fake-news-in-malaysia

BBC News. (2021, September 4). Ivermectin: Oklahoma doctor warns against using drug for Covid treatment. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-58449876

Malaysia: Repeal “fake news” emergency ordinance - ARTICLE 19. (2021, March 15). ARTICLE 19. https://www.article19.org/resources/malaysia-fake-news-ordinance/

Vraga, E. K., & Bode, L. (2020). Correction as a solution for health misinformation on social media. American Journal of Public Health, 110(S3), S278–S280. https://doi.org/10.2105/ajph.2020.305916

WhatsApp. (2012, January 16). It is a hoax. Really, it is. WhatsApp. https://blog.whatsapp.com/it-is-a-hoax-really-it-is

X Corp. (2024). About Community Notes on X. X. https://help.x.com/en/using-x/community-notes

Yom-Tov, E., Shembekar, J., Barclay, S., & Muennig, P. (2018). The effectiveness of public health advertisements to promote health: a randomized-controlled trial on 794,000 participants. Npj Digital Medicine, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41746-018-0031-7

#week 7 #digitalcommunities #mediastudies #misinformation #public health

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anonymous-dentist · 10 months ago

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So many of your fics have been great twitter bait, they really like vampires and croier/fcell and superheroes on there, you're really only missing university/high school aus and those mixed social media ones with fake tweets and Whatsapp messages. Maybe it's the lack of advertisement? Most of the really popular fics that they seem to share and make fanart of are threadfics. The sort where they have cover art and a quoted tweet thread introducing the characters. Same goes for the interactive ones with polls, but I know Breaking Dawn does that already on here.

Genuinely I think it’s because I don’t exactly have a twitter account to advertise on? Like, I’m just a tumblr account. Worse, I’m an American tumblr account.

I’ll just let you guys with twitter advertise for me! :)

#asks!#anon!

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mariacallous · 7 months ago

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Most scammers and cybercriminals operate in the digital shadows and don’t want you to know how they make money. But that’s not the case for the Yahoo Boys, a loose collective of young men in West Africa who are some of the web’s most prolific—and increasingly dangerous—scammers.

Thousands of people are members of dozens of Yahoo Boy groups operating across Facebook, WhatsApp, and Telegram, a WIRED analysis has found. The scammers, who deal in types of fraud that total hundreds of millions of dollars each year, also have dozens of accounts on TikTok, YouTube, and the document-sharing service Scribd that are getting thousands of views.

Inside the groups, there’s a hive of fraudulent activity with the cybercriminals often showing their faces and sharing ways to scam people with other members. They openly distribute scripts detailing how to blackmail people and how to run sextortion scams—that have driven people to take their own lives—sell albums with hundreds of photographs, and advertise fake social media accounts. Among the scams, they’re also using AI to create fake “nude” images of people and real-time deepfake video calls.

The Yahoo Boys don’t disguise their activity. Many groups use “Yahoo Boys” in their name as well as other related terms. WIRED’s analysis found 16 Yahoo Boys Facebook groups with almost 200,000 total members, a dozen WhatsApp channels, around 10 Telegram channels, 20 TikTok accounts, a dozen YouTube accounts, and more than 80 scripts on Scribd. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Broadly, the companies do not allow content on their platforms that encourages or promotes criminal behavior. The majority of the Yahoo Boys accounts and groups WIRED identified were removed after we contacted the companies about the groups’ overt existence. Despite these removals, dozens more Yahoo Boys groups and accounts remain online.

“They’re not hiding under different names,” says Kathy Waters, the cofounder and executive director of the nonprofit Advocating Against Romance Scammers, which has tracked the Yahoo Boys for years. Waters says the social media companies are essentially providing the Yahoo Boys with “free office space” to organize and conduct their activities. “They’re selling scripts, selling photos, identifications of people, all online, all on the social media platforms,” she says. “Why these accounts still remain is beyond me.”

The Yahoo Boys aren’t a single, organized group. Instead, they’re a collection of thousands of scammers who work individually or in clusters. Often based in Nigeria, their name comes from formerly targeting users of Yahoo services, with links back to the Nigerian Prince email scams of old. Groups in West Africa can be often organized in various confraternities, which are cultish gangs.

“Yahoo is a set of knowledge that allows you to conduct scams,” says Gary Warner, the director of intelligence at DarkTower and director of the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Computer Forensics Research Laboratory. While there are different levels of sophistication of Yahoo Boys, Warner says, many simply operate from their phones. “Most of these threat actors are only using one device,” he says.

The Yahoo Boys run dozens of scams—from romance fraud to business email compromise. When making contact with potential victims, they’ll often “bomb” people by sending hundreds of messages to dating app accounts or Facebook profiles. “They will say anything they can in order to get the next dime in their pocket,” Waters says.

Searching for the Yahoo Boys on Facebook brings up two warnings: Both say the results may be linked to fraudulent activity, which isn’t allowed on the website. Clicking through the warnings reveals Yahoo Boy groups with thousands of members—one had more than 70,000.

Within the groups—alongside posts selling SIM cards and albums with hundreds of pictures—many of the scammers push people toward other messaging platforms such as Meta’s WhatsApp or Telegram. Here, the Yahoo Boys are at their most bold. Some groups and channels on the two platforms receive hundreds of posts per day and are part of their wider web of operations.

After WIRED asked Facebook about the 16 groups we identified, the company removed them, and some WhatsApp groups were deactivated. “Scammers use every platform available to them to defraud people and constantly adapt to avoid getting caught,” says Al Tolan, a Meta spokesperson. They did not directly address the accounts that were removed or that they were easy to find. “Purposefully exploiting others for money is against our policies, and we take action when we become aware of it,” Tolan says. “We continue to invest in technology and cooperate with law enforcement so they can prosecute scammers. We also actively share tips on how people can protect themselves, their accounts, and avoid scams.”

Groups on Telegram were removed after WIRED messaged the company’s press office; however, the platform did not respond about why it had removed them.

Across all types of social media, Yahoo Boys scammers share “scripts” that they use to socially manipulate people—these can run to thousands of words long and can be copied and pasted to different victims. Many have been online for years. “I’ve seen some scripts that are 30 and 60 layers deep, before the scammer actually would have to go and think of something else to say,” says Ronnie Tokazowski, the chief fraud fighter at Intelligence for Good, which works with cybercrime victims. “It’s 100 percent how they'll manipulate the people,” Tokazowski says.

Among the many scams, they pretend to be military officers, people offering “hookups,” the FBI, doctors, and people looking for love. One “good morning” script includes around a dozen messages the scammers can send to their targets. “In a world full of deceit and lies, I feel lucky when see the love in your eyes. Good morning,” one says. But things get much darker.

The Yahoo Boys have been behind a recent wave of sextortion across the United States and elsewhere, says Paul Raffile, an intelligence analyst at the Network Contagion Research Institute who is closely tracking the criminals. Broadly speaking, during sextortion, a scammer will use intimate or explicit images to try to get someone to pay them money. “The Yahoo Boys are the principal threat actor behind the surge of sextortion that we’re seeing over the past 18 months,” Raffile says. “They are responsible for forcing dozens of teens to suicide.”

In a series of posts in one Telegram channel, highlighted by Warner, who is also involved in Intelligence for Good, one cybercriminal can be seen walking others through how to run a sextortion scam. They say they tricked people into sharing nude images—posting screenshots of the conversation—and explained ways other people can replicate it. “Hey I am posting your naked pictures on social media and Facebook,” says a sample message cybercriminals could use. “Am not just posting it am sending copies of it to your area,” the message says, before demanding $700.

While the scripts like these are shared on all social media channels, WIRED found at least 80 on the document-sharing service Scribd. The company removed them after WIRED got in touch, with a spokesperson saying there are limits on what people can upload and that the company has automated and manual reviews to remove content. “We’re actively building out new capabilities to broaden the scope of content moderation coverage to include a wider range of concerning text and image violations,” the spokesperson says. Some of the scripts had been online since 2020, and on pages where they were removed a “reading suggestions” section recommended other scam scripts.

Raffile says the Yahoo Boys have been able to “thrive” online “due to lack of moderation around all the illicit material” that they’re sharing. “They’re acting with impunity because they feel they will never get caught,” Raffile says.

Beyond the messaging platforms, the Yahoo Boys have a presence on TikTok and YouTube. “We design our app to be inhospitable to those who seek to exploit our community and we’ve removed this content for violating our policies,” a TikTok spokesperson says.

“Our policies prohibit spam, scams, or other deceptive practices that take advantage of the YouTube community,” a YouTube spokesperson says. “We also prohibit videos that encourage illegal or dangerous activities. As such, we have terminated the flagged channels for violating our policies and our terms of service.” They add that the company removed accounts for breaching policies about harmful content, spam, and generally violating its terms of service.

The accounts posted tutorials about how to scam people, link to groups on messaging apps, and promote technology for fake video calls. On TikTok, multiple accounts include carousels of images that the scammers can use in their efforts to create believable personas. Some of these include posts of elderly women for scammers who are in “need of grandma pictures for proof” of their fake identities and others for scammers who “need kids pics” for their victims.

As well as being a threat to thousands of people around the world, the Yahoo Boys can be quick to adopt new technologies. David Maimon, a professor at Georgia State University and the head of fraud insights at the identity-verification firm SentiLink, has monitored Yahoo Boys for years and says their techniques have evolved alongside new technologies.

“To build rapport with victims, the fraudsters first used text messages, then started sending recorded audio messages, to now using deepfake tools to communicate with victims live,” Maimon says. “On some of the markets we now also see the use of cloned voices. It is now accompanied with sending physical items to victims such as presents, food deliveries, and flowers.” Within some groups, they use “nudification” tools to turn photos of people clothed into nude photos, and deepfake video calls.

While the Yahoo Boys have been active for years, all the experts spoken to for this piece say they should be treated more seriously by social media companies and law enforcement. “It’s time that we start looking at Yahoo Boys as a dangerous organization, transnational organized crime, and start giving it some of those labels,” Raffile says.

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nickgerlich · 8 months ago

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0 To 5 Billion

Twenty-five years ago, the number was 0. No, it wasn’t the temperature, in either Fahrenheit or Celsius. It wasn’t the inflation rate or the interest rate. It wasn’t the number of EVs that had been sold.

Nope, it was the number of people on social media. It simply did not exist. But data released earlier this year show just how much of a force it has become, because there are now slightly more than five billion people worldwide on social media, or 62.3% of the world’s population. It may not be Ferrari-like acceleration, but it is still pretty impressive.

The typical user spends 2h23m per day on 6.7 platforms. Of course, your mileage may vary, but those are the averages. Among Android users, they spend 34 hours per month on TikTok and 28 hours per month on YouTube.

And you wonder where all of your time went.

Overall, Instagram takes top honors as favorite platform, toppling WhatsApp, a popular platform everywhere but the US. Overall, we spend 6h40m a day online doing one thing or another. Based on my weekly screen time report that pops onto my phone every Sunday morning, I am above average.

All of this time has to come out of other things, since we are still kind of locked in at 24 hours available each day. Television watching is in decline, losing another 17 minutes last year. I suspect it is also coming out of interpersonal time, productive time at work, and leisure activities. Sure, we might figure out how to juggle things (how many of you keep a social app open on your computer while at work?), but let’s face it: You’re probably not dedicating quality time to either.

And since marketers go where the eyeballs are, digital ad spend grew by 10% last year to $720 billion. Social media ad spending was $207 billion.

So what does this say about us as a people? A lot. It says that we have changed considerably in a quarter of a century, that no matter how much we may naysay social media specifically, or this digital lifestyle more generally, we have embraced it all nonetheless.

Social media has become the way that people connect and reconnect. Yes, some people use it as a substitute for F2F interactions. Like it or not, this is how we do it, and in the developed world, it has become the de facto means of communication. When was the last time you sent a greeting card of any kind, such as birthday, holidays, anniversary, etc.? Do you even call people these days? My calling log grows more sparse with each passing year. Do you no longer feel the need to attend reunions and similar social gatherings, because you already know what your old pals have been doing thanks to their posts?

We get our news online. We find our entertainment online. We shop online. We get our recipes online. There’s not much we don’t get online. And the implication to marketers is clear as the world approaches digital totality: you either join the tidal shift in redirected advertising dollars, or run the risk of completely losing relevance.

But as we continue the transition, we must be cognizant of the fact that old-school methods of advertising, notably mass communication on broadcast or print media vehicles, is probably a waste of time and money. A shotgun approach to advertising means spending massive sums to spray messages in the general direction of people, hoping that you actually reach some of the people you really want. We can do much better now with targeted advertising. It behooves us to understand the users of each platform, and then utilizing all of the tools available, go after specific people. The audience of many has been replaced by the audience of one.

I know that this creeps out some people, as we have discussed multiple times. But as we approach the end of this course, we need to step back and try to see the bigger picture. This is where we are. Digital marketing commands an ever growing portion of all marketing activities, and I suspect that, while old-school methods may never go away completely, it will be the gorilla in the living room.

Discussion topics like this may summon comparisons to Black Mirror, the Jetsons, The Matrix, and numerous other pop culture touchstones. Those may very well have been prophetic; we just didn’t realize it at the time. If you are uncomfortable with change, you’re in for a rough ride ahead. I don’t see this crazy train slowing down any time soon.

I do hope that my students will ponder these stats, but more importantly think about what it all means. Things have changed even in just the three months we have been journeying together. It may not feel like much, but when you turn to look over your shoulder, you can see just how far we have come, not just in 2024, but in the last 25 years.

That little speck you see in the distance is where we were. We can’t go back there, and to try is futile. Zero may have been quaint, but we’re at five billion now and growing. What you do with that reality is up to you.

Dr “The End Is Near” Gerlich

Audio Blog

#marketing #social media #digital marketing

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bulk-whatsapp-sender · 6 months ago

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sadiayeasmin272 · 3 months ago

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nexgendigitalsolutions · 8 months ago

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Discover the Top 10 Digital Marketing Agencies in Delhi for 2024

In the ever-evolving digital landscape, businesses are constantly seeking innovative and efficient ways to connect with their target audience, build brand awareness, and drive sales. The capital city of India, Delhi, is a bustling hub for digital marketing expertise, housing some of the most proficient agencies in the country. Leading the pack is Nexgen Digital Solutions, a comprehensive digital marketing agency renowned for its bespoke services and client-centric approach. Here’s a detailed look at the top 10 digital marketing agencies in Delhi for 2024, starting with the frontrunner.

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Known for its creative strategies and innovative solutions, Creative Digital Brain offers personalized digital marketing solutions that resonate with your brand’s voice and objectives. Their expertise in social media marketing and content creation makes them a standout choice.

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Focusing on ROI-driven strategies, Market Leaders excel in delivering measurable results through SEO, PPC, and digital strategy. They are a top choice for businesses looking to get a competitive edge in their industry.

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With a strong emphasis on technology-driven marketing solutions, TechSavvy Marketers specialize in marketing automation, AI-based analytics, and targeted ad campaigns, catering to the tech-savvy entrepreneur.

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Brand Builders are experts in crafting compelling brand stories and digital experiences that engage and convert. Their services include brand strategy, digital advertising, and customer engagement techniques.

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Offering a blend of traditional and digital marketing strategies, Visionary Media Group is perfect for businesses looking for a comprehensive approach to increase their online and offline presence.

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As the name suggests, Digital Innovation Hub is all about innovative digital solutions. Specializing in emerging technologies and digital transformation strategies, they help businesses stay ahead of the curve.

8. Social Savvy

Social Savvy focuses on leveraging social media platforms to build brand loyalty and drive engagement. Their targeted social media campaigns are designed to connect businesses with their ideal audience effectively.

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SEO Masters are the go-to agency for all things SEO. From keyword research to on-page and off-page optimization, they ensure your website ranks high on search engines and attracts organic traffic.

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OmniChannel Experts specialize in creating seamless customer experiences across all digital and physical channels. Their integrated marketing strategies ensure consistent messaging and branding across all touchpoints.

Choosing the right digital marketing agency is crucial for the success of your online marketing efforts. Each of these agencies brings something unique to the table, but Nexgen Digital Solutions stands out for its comprehensive services and customer-first approach, making it an excellent choice for businesses in Delhi and beyond.

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