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.

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.

@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.

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

whatever country you live in, it’s already better than the US.

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.

My cat just died chewing through the power cable on my graphics card so I need a new 5090, please help brother

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

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You can send it using stealthex.io or changenow.io for example with a credit card or if you own other crypto.

no pasarán. hasta la victoria siempre.  ✊

Tell them I’ll do it for $495

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.

…

What kind of friend are we talking about?

I only ever got one. I feel so rejected!

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.

Sorry but that’s just funny.

It’s like grifting Trump supporters.

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.

@Feathercrown 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.

Like tumblr, “you don’t understand! 90-ghost says i’m real!!”

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.

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.

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…

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.

I see a lot of teenagers falling for the “I’m a Gazan and need help getting out.” accounts too.

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 is “mutual aid spam” because I believe these are posted in mutual aid communities.

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 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.

I first heard it in 2019 or 2020 from the queer community but I have a feeling it has deeper roots

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.

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.

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.

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.

Seems like a great way to poison the concept of “mutual aid” before most people (such as OP) have even heard of it.

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.

dissentmagazine.org/…/tenant-unions-for-the-futur…

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.)

foodnotbombs.net/new_site/

Charity is not mutual aid.

Funnily enough, I haven’t seen many instances delicated to just spam, like there was conerns about. Its mostly from .world or mastodon.social