Yep.

I feel the fediverse should lean towards “overly aggressive” when combatting spam, before it takes root, even with all the negatives that brings.

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.

That's not mutual aid, that's scam spam. Report it.

Yeah, mutual aid works on the local level or in insular communities like long-term discord groups with a tight group of regular members. With community mutual aid, I'm generally in favor of just taking people at their word. If they say they need help, give them help. No need to interrogate them like the food stamp office will. You prevent people from abusing the system by simply not granting endless requests from the same person. Or if someone needs severe aid, at that point you can start actually verifying their story, helping them access government benefits, helping them find employment, etc.

But that kind of open approach works for in-person aid. It doesn't work for anonymous online aid, where someone can use bots to spin up hundreds of convincing profiles each begging for money.

I just don't think mutual aid works well in an online context. The only online context it works in is among communities like small discord groups where people know each other for years. But on a lemmy or mastadon-type service? Mutual aid is impractical. Any people asking for aid should be directed to local groups that can help them in person.

That's not mutual aid that's charity. Mutual aid is mutually beneficial to both parties.

How is this mutual aid spam? This is by definition not mutual. It's begging.

There is an entire sub on here somewhere that is only for mutual aid. The sob stories in there are batshit crazy.

@fediverse @atomicpoet Yep! Majority of them are questionable, even those who claim they were "manually" verified by some supposedly "well-known" person. Even in the ATmosphere network, it's the same.

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.

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]

@atomicpoet @fediverse THX for putting this clearly on the table, I had this scepticism for some time already ...

I was just offered 500$ to be someone's friend. Of course, I refused - my friendship is worth much more than that!

But it's... concerning that we've got this sudden spike in spam.

Is it weird that I've never heard this term "mutual aid" before this thread but apparently everyone here knows all about it?

Anyway. There's just no way I'd give real money to someone asking for it like this because for every real person there must be a dozen scammers at least. It honestly seems crazy to me that this could work and people could send money.

If people are giving money away like this then they're part of the problem IMO. You're encouraging scammers, and perpetuating the practice, diverting money away from the people who actually need it.

Who is seriously stupid enough to fall for this?

@fediverse@lemmy.world

Whoa, is this from Mastodon?

@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.

I just mute all of them.

It may be my "3rd world syndrome" but to me, someone with internet access and a social media account who post regularly, is not in poverty. More likely a spambot.

My local beggar, in contrast, is a sincere person who tells me that he just want some cheap boxed wine or something to smoke. Refuses food or any kind of help. Cash only.

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.

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 mind 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.

People do solicit donations, as on just about every public forum. I really wouldn't call it a problem on lemmy at this point, but a rule against it except in communities where it's encouraged wouldn't be a terrible idea. Somebody who is interested in doing it could start a Please Help community specifically for these requests, requiring some form of verification. Seems like running it could turn into a lot of work tho.