#PSA: If your profile pic is a sick or battered child, then I'm not going to accept your follow request (and I might block or even report you depending on how bad the photo is).

I get like a dozen of these requests per day, and I *really* don't want to see photos of bleeding children¹ scattered throughout my timeline.

¹ same goes for profile pics of genitals, gore, guns, etc.

@alice

there is a genocide happening.
God forbid you might have to look at something on your timeline that you can scroll past.

@FranceskaMann @alice Yeah, that's the wrong approach there. People absolutely have the right not to have their safe spaces inundated with the horrors of the rest of the world. Yes, it is a privilege to be able to do that, it's also a right.
@StarkRG @FranceskaMann @alice Not to mention this is the internet, and there are hundreds of scam accounts for every real mutual aid account. If the account hasn't been independently verified (ie, by being listed on Gaza-Verified) and they pop up in your follow or DM requests with a plea for help, they're most likely a scammer. The scammers will attempt to hijack your sympathy, and it only harms those who actually need help.

@StarkRG and I help fight the horrors I can, with the resources I have. It's beyond horrible what Israel is doing in Gaza.

It's also horrible what the fascists are doing to immigrants, trans folx, women, and kids.

Horrors abound.

And, especially, fuck scammers trying to profit off of them with scraped or AI-generated photos of bloody kids as their profile pics.

@FranceskaMann

@FranceskaMann @alice You do realize that the vast majority of those are scammers, right? The odds that an actual victim of genocide has found internet connection, went to a 10th largest social media network, found their way into an English speaking instance, all to beg post? Nah fam, they're scams. Give to the Mafia if you want to, but that money isn't making it to Gaza.
mstdn

@axx WTF is that even? Just some LLM slop with please feed my starving children tacked on the end?
@JessTheUnstill @axx Ok this account appears to be officially Gaza Verified via @gazaverified ... How did they get past vetting, or... has Gaza Verified been compromised all along?
@corbden @JessTheUnstill @gazaverified it's very unclear to me

@axx @corbden TBH I'm pretty suspicious about the whole network of Gaza mutual aid beg posting here. I've read about the complicated network of scam farms and how they collaborate to catfish and hit their numbers. They'll even have various models to pose as the "actual" person and all the comms are then done by other scammer slaves who keep the catfish up.

Find a left leaning sympathetic collective of social network with immature moderation controls, do some laundering of numbers of followers and reputation building to make a "verified" network, and then milk the network's sympathy. Or they pay "real" Palestinians a pittance to do the verification and sell the accounts off to the scammers that then run the account. There's too many accounts on that list for the team to continue to video revalidate everyone. So once the account is created and verified, hand it to others to continue the farming.

Whether it's compromised by default or they're useful dupes or who knows. I have to put more credit towards legit aid orgs than mutual aid to random people who speak another language in a war zone posting begs on social media.

@JessTheUnstill @axx We'll see what they say. I saw their original posts years ago when they created it and why, and it seemed legit. They have rules (like no reply spamming) and I've worked with them about verified accounts that have broken the rules, reported people claiming to be verified who weren't etc. They've been very responsive. But I'm not above being tricked, and even organizations that start out good can be taken over.
@corbden @axx Again I don't know squat about facts on the ground anywhere. Maybe I'm entirely unfounded and doing needless fearmongering. There's just too much internet scams out there for me to put much of any trust that money sent to some random gfm or whatever is actually making it to a desperate person in a warzone.
@JessTheUnstill @axx No I appreciate your skepticism. Trust but verify, and then reverify.

@JessTheUnstill @axx @corbden

This is the exact reason I give to orgs and not individuals.

@FranceskaMann You cannot possibly think that if there's anything terrible happening in the world, it means everyone then must consent to be subjected to images of the worst horrors imaginable at any and all times.