Know You’re Internet Grifter Counter Tactics - Blocking

Years ago for my own amusement I purposefully started following some rather questionable Facebook accounts to investigate the relentless, brutally obvious porn scammers appearing in my friends list.  And nearly a decade later things haven’t changed, because it’s one of the things that the tech algorithms suck at - separating real people from fake accounts.  Mostly because they don’t care anywhere near as much as they claim to.

I do not need thousands of followers to validate my existence.  I do not care what others think about me too much.  So this project was a bit of role playing on my part.  The D&D group dissolved long ago.

Since the scammer goal is to create a pyramid of followers to link the algorithms together, there are two main ways to force your thoughts into other’s timelines.  Bots and real life people acting like bots.  And you may encounter someone acting like a pushy vacuum cleaner with their foot stuck in the door.

Sometimes people on Twixter act like the latter and follow my account.  Maybe that’s to try to get regular feedback posted to the timeline on what I’m up to.  Which is useless since my research goes unnoticed because I generally do not post what I’m up to, especially when I come across something major that they don’t need to know about.  These moles can do it the old fashioned way by searching, the same way I regularly search “gematria” on Twixter for the latest posts on what the internet weirdos are up to.

The main anti mole tactic is the art of blocking.  And like the Facebook project, those that dream of being a high level influencer with thousands or even millions of followers have no housekeeping skills.  Their followers are riddled with people and bot accounts that are up to no good.   

So first a side note.  Everyone should occasionally go through their list of followers and look for suspicious accounts.  On FB, if you see more than one account that is a real life friend you interact with - one of them is likely a fake account with hijacked photos from the real account.  Block and report.  If someone has muted their profile, they are following you but you can’t see their posts that are hidden.  Those are probably up to no good.  Block them.  Bear in mind they might show as a different username than they originally friended you under.

Now, on to the show.

This botnet has been annoying me and others for months now.  Like a broken record it’s always the same innocuous message about liking married men.  Good for you.  The comments are naturally filled with people that believe it’s for real, not realizing it’s the Twixter equivalent of Facebook porn.  If you’re cognitively damaged enough to believe that there’s a woman interested in you that can’t find a different phrase to say than liking married men you are willing to buy swamp land.  The image here is a repeat.  Whether it’s a real photo, a stock photo or an AI generated image the account is up to no good.

The same method applies to those that randomly follow you instead of just jump starting the algorithms by posting innocuous messages insinuating they are interested in you.  You have two options.  The hard block is when you go through the full process of being permanently done with the account.  It takes seconds.  The soft block is a hedge in case you are wrong.  It takes a few seconds more, and it forces the account to unfollow you if they did, but they can try again.  So maybe it is Aunt Bessie and she can try posting a message that she wants to update you about rewriting the will instead of that she wants to fool around with married men.

Click the    …   in the upper right corner.

And you get a menu option with blocking the offending account available.  Click that and there’s a dialogue box that basically asks if you are sure, you can undo the block.  That’s how you soft block.

I like soft blocking since if it’s a real human they have to live with the knowledge that I’m on to their fake account or account up to no good has to put more effort in to trying to get at my posts.

And since there’s been yet another congressional hearing about what social media does wrong and it’s negative impacts, I propose a piece of a solution (there’s no good way to make a total solution).  

Baseless conspiracies are about force feeding misinformation under the guise of free speech.  There are certain users that are known troublemakers.  Be it the bot accounts that get banned after far too long post damage being done, or those that do not care since maximum engagement leads to maximum grifting.   For the real humans bridging the gap between bots and normies - Change the default to blocked and let those that want to see the content go through the effort of unblocking it.  That’s not much different than the municipality that posts a no soliciting ordinance.  I prefer to live in a world where my rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is not unduly influenced by those that don’t play well with others.

You should, too.