Facebook Scams That Demean Others
You may have seen posts with status messages along the lines of:
- No one will share this because she is disabled
- Nobody Likes me just because...
- Click Like and type Amen
- Share and type YES if you...
But these posts are fake and demeaning to the people featured in the photos.
What the posts say they are for
The posts suggest the person in the photo is the original poster and that you, as the reader, are ashamed of them because of their background or disability. It suggests that you help them by sharing the post, liking, and possibly also typing some message or word underneath.
What you should do
The posts are fake, they are designed to make you feel emotionally involved but they are just designed to increase user interaction. They are conning unsuspecting, kind-hearted Facebook users into interacting with the posts (sharing, commenting and liking) out of shame and pity.
If you come across one of these posts, you should block and report the page using the arrow on the top right of the shared post (be careful here not to block and report your friend by mistake!) If you don't feel confident in reporting the page as spam, then just ignore the post.
It's not going to hurt anyone if I do share it though...
The photos used on these posts (some of them are edited before posting to make it look like they have a missing limb) are stolen from facebook profiles, flickr groups or other photo sharing sites and used without the permission of the person featured.
The posts are disrespectful to the person in them, and in sharing the photo you are unsuspectingly spreading the hurt they cause the victim.
Why are they doing this?
The posters have only one interest in mind, to promote themselves on Facebook at the cost of the poor victims in their posts. Their goal is to get as many people to share and comment on their horrid posts.
Facebook calls this kind of interaction 'organic' and the more organic shares, likes and comments a page can generate, the more popular Facebook considers it. This helps promote the page on Facebook, and once they have got all this 'positive' organic feedback, they can then use the page for other uses, like promoting hate speech, trying to distort the 'now trending' section on Facebook with their own agenda, and possibly spreading links to other similar Facebook pages and websites.
tinsleyNET IT Services Consultant
IT Support for small to medium sized businesses, home office workers and home users across the West Midlands and Shropshire.
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