Mutual aid spam is becoming a problem on the Fediverse.

Lol, comments in this thread forgot the 'mutual' part of 'mutual aid' and miss the point of this post (scams in mutual aid groups)
If you think mutual aid is a one-way street (/ don't benefit from it), is not for you, block and move on

Its tough cause we want to help people in need but also dont want to be scammed. Theres gotta be a better way to do this!
- Seems like a great way to poison the concept of "mutual aid" before most people (such as OP) have even heard of it.

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 agree. E-mail is the original federated service. And 50 years later e-mail spam remains a big problem. I hope Fedi projects can get spam mitigations on-par with email before spammers start getting serious about this place.
  
  I'd argue that telephones are the original federated service. There were fits and starts to getting the proprietary Bell/AT&T network to play nice with devices or lines not operated by them, but the initial system for long distance calling over the North American Numbering Plan made it possible for an AT&T customer to dial non-AT&T customers by the early 1950's, and set the groundwork for the technical feasibility of the breakup of the AT&T/Bell monopoly.
  We didn't call it spam then, but unsolicited phone calls have always been a problem.
  
  Unfortunately, email solved the spam problem by becoming centralized AF. Now everything requires a “reputation”.

I see a lot of people asking for mutual aid, and it's often "I've had a hard day and just want some McDonalds, please help"
OK, that's not mutual aid, and you shouldn't be asking for that under that hashtag. if you need help paying your rent, or with gas money so you don't lose your job, that's something that appropriate for mutual aid. asking for money for vices should be something you do off the hashtag, or on your OF or something. mutual aid is for people helping where they can, when they can, for problems that are serious and life-altering. and nothing else.
- Mutual Aid is not charity. Mutual aid is beneficial for both parties.
  Mutual aid for rent would be to join a tenants union so that people can get organized and perform a rent strike.
  https://www.dissentmagazine.org/online_articles/tenant-unions-for-the-future/
  Mutual Aid for food would be something like Food Not Bombs. (It's an http site so only sign up if you're comfortable with that.)
  http://foodnotbombs.net/new_site/
  Charity is not mutual aid.

"Mutual aid"? Is that what scammers are calling it now? What exactly is "mutual" about this interaction?
I don't think there's anything wrong with creating a community where people who are struggling financially can ask for help or plug their GoFundMe or whatever, but allowing these guys to essentially cold call individuals with DMs/Mentions is unacceptable.

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.
- Charity is not the same as mutual aid anyways, even though I have also seen "mutual aid" requests on the Fediverse that were clearly asking for charity.
  
  How would you differentiate the two?
- I for one am not willing to feed a milk-bone addiction, no matter how good a boy he is.
- I don’t think mutual aid can work well like that on the internet. Works great in person,
  That can be an incredibly privileged position to be in to say. Some people are in situations so bad in their meatspace life that "the random internet" is actually more trustworthy.
  
  It might be better for them but it’s not better for the internet strangers, now there is an unknown beggar in their space.

@atomicpoet @fediverse I'm glad someone brought this up. I basically assume all mutual aid posts are fraudulent unless strictly verifiable.

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.
- I see a lot of teenagers falling for the “I’m a Gazan and need help getting out.” accounts too.
- I agree, and I believe that tapping in to and participating in local networks and groups whether they be fully or partially online and/or in person is beneficial for both ones self and ones community. It seems to me it will be these networks that make much of the difference between survival of large populations and large scale disasters. Community organizing is so important.

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.
- Mutual aid is not giving random internet assholes money because they begged for it. I'm not saying they should be banned from doing so, but calling it mutual aid is 100% a scam. Mutual aid is given freely, within a pre-established network.
  Hosting a friend on your couch for a week cause they're in between apartments is mutual aid. Feeding your friends without expecting anything in return is mutual aid. Enabling e-begging is not mutual aid.
  
  I guess in this case it's OP that labeled it as mutual aid rather than the requester.
- It isn't really that odd, considering you've only been here a couple of weeks. Mutual Aid is a foundational idea in most if not all anarchist projects and theory.
  There may be many scammers, yes, but the goal remains the same - get help to those who need it from those in a position to give it.
  As for being part of the problem, I must disagree. Scammers aren't leeching just this, they'd be present in any system purporting to help others (in gov't systems this is called fraud), the goal of these grassroots aid projects is to help those who fall through the cracks of more formalized systems and decentralize some aid in case the church/NGO/gov't can't or won't help (see the Hurricane Helene/Katrina responses when FEMA is overwhelmed).
  Means-testing recipients is kinda a dick move anyway: those who have demonstrable need will have a harder time getting aid and time/money that should be spent helping are now spent with verification.
  
  Hah.
  I've probably been kicking around the fediverse longer than you, it's just this particular account that's only a few weeks old.
  Anyhow, feel free to continue giving money to people asking for it on lemmy i guess.
- Is it weird that I've never heard this term "mutual aid" before this thread but apparently everyone here knows all about it?
  May be an American thing? I don't know have never heard of it or encountered it.
  
  It's a very terminally online leftist thing. You would see it in communist/anarchist leftist spaces, people retweeting posts of disabled/neurodivergent people asking for help with rent.
  I don't think there is anything inherently wrong with it, and kudos to those who donate. But it quickly turns into a popularity/disability contest of who can fit the most disability categories in a GoFundMe.
  
  Americans have had to invent novel terms to avoid using the 's' or 'c' word with politics. 'Mutual aid' is a term usually used to refer tk grassroots organizing of communities to cover basic needs like food and medicine.
  Referring to a common internet scam as 'mutual aid' is doing more work to smear the term than anything.
- I first heard it in 2019 or 2020 from the queer community but I have a feeling it has deeper roots
  
  Originally a concept by late 19th century anarchist Peter Kropotkin:
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution

That's not mutual aid, that's scam spam. Report it.
- One problem with reporting private messages on Lermy is, as an admin i don't see who sent the message. I only see who reported it. And i don't have any actlon available, other than marking the report as handled.
  with reported posts, i can ban the poster. With reported messages i'd have to ask the reporter who it was, trust their answer, search for the account manually and then i could ban. Not really efficient or fast if there ever was a spam wave.
  of course sparmers could then just register a new account on a open instance and i might need to defederates which would lead to a fractured landscape of spammy open instances and likely inactive private instances.
  there's also not even rudimantary spam filtering in lemmy.
  The main saving grace is that Lemmy is too small to attract a ton of spam yet.
  maybe some of the above is just due my pick of clients (jerboa and the web interface), and there's better tools? If so, i'd love to hear. But as things stand right now, there's a lot to be desired
  
  What in the honest fsck was the reasoning behind that?
  
  I wish I had approximately double the hours in a given day, and also vastly more coding skill to help in meaningful ways.
  It seems sort of odd that comments or messages reported for spam don’t offer any tools. Even a simple url pattern match that gives mods/admins the ability to click a checkbox to remember the link and take some predefined action in the future would be a rudimentary but effective option.
  I mean, heck, it’s the fediverse. In my fantasy implementation of an anti-spam approach, it would be possible to federate these lists of untrusted links and assign consensus-based confidence scores for links generated from moderator actions across instances. (With options for instance admins to tailor their own trust scores of other instances, so that each instance can choose for themselves who they trust, just in case a couple rogue instance admins try to poison the spam filter.)
  Same concept can be applied to banned accounts, although in that circumstance, I’d suggest they find a way to mask the email address when sharing it. Not that folks won’t just spin up a new email. But, you know. Something is better than nothing.
  Hopefully that makes sense. I’m losing my mind with sleep deprivation.

How is this mutual aid spam? This is by definition not mutual. It's begging.
- It is "mutual aid spam" because I believe these are posted in mutual aid communities.
- Mutual aid is a common term for people in a group helping each other. It doesn't imply reciprocal transactions. But by all means, let's ignore the topic and pick apart the exact wording.
  
  It's not ignoring the topic. Mutual aid is an organized operation. Literally says it the link. This is not mutual aid. The topic is about "mutual aid spam" which this is not at all an example of "mutual aid". This is just begging or panhandling or scamming.
  
  They might not have known what mutual aid is and you explained it very well with the first two sentences. The last sentence doesn't serve any useful purpose if they didn't know.

Yeah, the other day I saw a lot of posts like "I am from palestine, my home is destroyed please donate to help"... Spam is probably the significant problem on fedi
- Funnily enough, I haven't seen many instances delicated to just spam, like there was conerns about. Its mostly from .world or mastodon.social

There are needs and needs, I refuse to help a money begger unless is a close friend which I can control how is the best I can do for him, money being the last resource. Instead I always demand for social programs and services sustained by taxes to support those in real need (survival needs) unconditionally.
I would sleep much better if part of my tax contribution (together that of anybody in function of their resources) goes to grant the minimum for a "dignity survival" to any human being regardless of their returned contribution, with programs for reinsertion and mental support so they have the best chances to reach eventually a "dignity life".
And, if still they cannot but just "survive" for the rest of their lives, I still want to fund it and give them the security to do it with dignity until the very end.

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

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

@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.
- Like tumblr, "you don't understand! 90-ghost says i'm real!!"

Personally only seen one asking for help and it was just a fella in my instance (super small) saying hey if u live in ___ my friend needs a place to crash at, retoot if possible (sounds super legit)

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.
- Same on Bluesky. And they are everywhere. Couple of years ago some accounts did this multiple times on Imgur. Even today occasionally some pop up again, but now the users are quick to call them out…with the admins doing jack shit. Which is classic for that site.
  When coming across a sob story my knee jerk reaction is “bullshit”. If you want to give money to charity, do so through a reputable organisation. And don’t trust any rando on the internet.
- Sorry but that’s just funny.
  It’s like grifting Trump supporters.

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]
- Hi, I'm ~~Nicole~~ wizardbeard! I'm a ~~proud~~ aromatic ~~Polish~~ Abyssal ~~girl~~ tube sock with googly eyes from ~~Toronto~~ the space between your walls (~~29 y/o~~ 50 ft)
  I’m currently taking the ~~pre-health sciences program at George Brown College~~ socks from your dryer hoping to ~~get into the medical field~~ find a broodmother for the spawn that will form the ranks of my holy army someday!
  You can't add me on Friendica. It's far too late for that. Far far too late for anyone to do anything to stop this.
  Your socks may be returned to you but they may never be the same.
- I only ever got one. I feel so rejected!
  
  I got one about an hour after I made my Mastodon account. found me pretty fucking fast.
  
  😭 I didn't get any. Why don't Polish egirls like me?

@atomicpoet @fediverse THX for putting this clearly on the table, I had this scepticism for some time already ...
- @regineheidorn @fediverse Yeah, people I know boosted her messages—which implies they may have given her money. The thing is, that grifter’s success is going to attract other grifters if this problem isn’t addressed.
  
  @atomicpoet @fediverse Yes. And we know this from the early e-mail days 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.
- Tell them I'll do it for $495
  
  I’ll be their mate if they pay me £400.
- The great thing about the fediverse is that it is harder to censor: as long as you find one instance where you can publish some information, you can publish it.
  The bad thing about the fediverse is that it is also harder to moderate: as long as a spammer or troll finds one instance from which they can send unwanted messages, they will be able to send them.
  
  In the long run, whitelisting may become the norm for federation instead of blacklisting.
- …
  What kind of friend are we talking about?

i had helped 2 people through Mastodon who seemed to genuinely need it on Mastodon a few months ago. I think it is nice to know that I can help people who need and they might help in my time of need.It is functional.

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.
- When I was homeless, I had a cell phone. It's pretty hard to find work without one. And I don't know if it's still the case, but at that time if you are on any sort of government assistance you could get a phone paid for.
  As it is really difficult to get out of poverty without one.
  That sad, I don't hand out money on lemmy. There are folks in my community I know need help too.
  
  I mean, I know phones can be cheap or donated. And I also know that homeless people may have possessions that some consider "expensive". It's not that uncommon.
  But constant internet connection needs monthly payments that, in my very personal and particular mindset, are not really compatible with "I'm a beggar. I need help".
  Having knowledge of the Fediverse it's too niche for me, and the stories like "I can't pay groceries!" almost every week are unlikely in a place where most of folks are tech workers. My spam-meter says that probably some people out there found the #mutualaid hashtag and are making some fake profiles and fake stories.
- Not trying to change your mind on giving money to internet grifters but having a cell phone is pretty much a basic tool of survival these days even if you're destitute. Phones more than a couple years old are basically e-waste and cost nothing or are donated/trashed all the time. Even a WiFi only phone can be the best tool someone has to find shelter, food and get important weather updates.
  
  Even if it's a recent phone, new flagship phones cost less than a month's rent in many places. It's not like phones are unattainable for homeless people.
- it may be like that in the "third world", but in western countries at least, if you don't have a cell phone you are pretty much actively discriminated against. many government programs, not to mention utilities, require the use of a smartphone app. for example, my electric company requires one, as does my internet company. you can't even begin service with my ISP if you don't have an app.
  if you live in the US, you'll find it very difficult to even find a job without a cell phone, as most unemployment programs or job listings are done through apps these days. so the first thing any homeless person needs to acquire, is internet access and social media.

At the beginning of the pan, someone was selling nudes to cover expenses. I think I sent twenty bucks because I could and she was cute and whatever. But then the person started messaging me about trying to get more money (for her and her sister) and it just felt like a scam and I became very cynical about it.
Btw, I slept funny last night and I have a neck cramp. Please send money. /s

@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.
- whatever country you live in, it's already better than the US.

@fediverse@lemmy.world
Whoa, is this from Mastodon?
- @Feathercrown@lemmy.world No, this account is specifically from Akkoma. I have also submitted posts from my Pixelfed account.
  I can submit a post to Lemmy by mentioning the community handle in my post. Such is the magic of the Fediverse.
  
  I can submit a post to Lemmy by mentioning the community handle in my post
  That's why I thought you came from Mastodon; they have the same feature.

Who is seriously stupid enough to fall for this?
- My cat just died chewing through the power cable on my graphics card so I need a new 5090, please help brother
  
  I can mail you a brand new cat. Good enough?
- Dear comrade Laser, ✊★🚩
  the fascist Melon Muskrat needs to be destroyed. The last couple of weeks I have been practicing propaganda of the deed and marked Tesla swasticars appropriately all over my state. Here's a photo with proof of a recent artwork of mine.
  Fighting this essential antifascist fight in these times of techno-feudal-nazi takeover costs me a lot of time and also money for supplies like spray cans, bus tickets, burner phones, and now also legal costs.
  Last week the fucking pigs (ACAB) caught me when a petit bourgeois snitch reported me and now I'm in legal trouble. The class traitors now want to squeeze 3500 $ from me.
  Your solidarity and mutual aid is essential for me and my comrades to continue the fight against tyranny. Every little thing helps.
  Revolutionary thanks and Antifascist greetings
  Secure Monero XMR transfer: monero:83XjbrEebhaZjgyVYZUjsZ4cF43UhQNHKBd6UUqPwmEuGLEoDGs67ebMg7nDLnj65bCsqKfPwGzuR3a1318u4fQbMWV8U4x
  You can send it using https://stealthex.io/ or https://changenow.io/ for example with a credit card or if you own other crypto.
  no pasarán. hasta la victoria siempre. ✊

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.

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.

Donate those that provide something meaningful.

Was that a PM or a post?

I would just reply with a guide to shoplifting 😉

POLICE! POLICE! PLEASE HELP!
I SAW A HOMELESS PERSON!!! THEY WERE ASKING FOR MONEY
PLEASE REMOVE THESE EYESORES
- This is why I turn off Google spam filtering. My attention is worth nothing so everyone who can message me should be able to.
  
  Imagine being so dead inside that automated emails and human beings occupy the same part of your mind

Isn't asthma medication pretty cheap and long lasting? From what little I know an inhaler can last many months. Also if they can't afford that, surely they have state medical insurance to help with it? Just seems so scammy.
- Also if they can’t afford that, surely they have state medical insurance
  Ha! No, depending on the state, there are tons of barriers, means-testing, work requirements, mandated classes they might not be able to attend (due to childcare/lack of transportation), etc.
  Even after the ACA, ER visits are still all the healthcare many people get.
- my inhaler is $70 per month with insurance. though it's a bit different from an albuterol inhaler, mine is a dry powder steroid thing, and it has a VERY short 30 day shelf life once opened.
  was $10 last year with insurance, but of course that shit changes every year..
  
  Wow that's awful.
- depends on how often you have to use it. also, most states won't give you insurance if you aren't below the poverty level. if you have a full-time job, even if you're barely making it paycheck to paycheck, you're probably ineligible for medicaid.