Endangering Humanity: Spammers steep to the lowest level of cruelty — Exploiting the shocking pictures of drowned Syrian boy is plain Inhuman.
This week has been extremely difficult, trying and emotionally stirring for The internet and social media users because this is the week when the photos of the lifeless body of a Syrian boy Alyan Kurdi were shared. The three-year-old Syrian boy drowned while attempting to reach Greece with his family and other refugees.
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It’s true that the pictures are very disturbing but equally disturbing is the fact that these graphic, telltale pictures are now being used by likes-hungry spammers on Facebook. The objective of spammers is to gain as many Facebook likes as possible for their pages.
The pictures were being shared prolifically across all prominent social networking forums most importantly Facebook and Twitter. Media reports are now being shared vehemently and within few hours the views of these pictures and reports reached millions.
Indeed, this is a crisis situation and everyone now has taken notice of the gravity of the situation.
However, for Like-Farming scammers, this is just another opportunity to increase the number of likes. Humanity is definitely in danger.
All About Like-Farming Scams:
It can be defined as a method through which people try to gather Likes for their Facebook pages. The method is a blend of emotional exploitation, deception and manipulation. Usually, scammers post content that has been specially designed to attract the followers towards their Facebook page. These followers prove to be very beneficial for scammers because they can use them later for different nefarious uses and may also sell them to marketing firms.
Most common method on Facebook is the “1share = 1prayer” tactic inspired from the “Facebook will donate for every like” campaign.
This shows that like-farming scammers only worry about personal benefits and how they can gain more from the ongoing crisis. This means they can exploit any event for their own good.
How Scammers Exploiting Syrian Boy Pictures?
Scammers post the picture of the dead Syrian boy lying on the beach with this tagline emblazoned at the bottom: “1share = 1prayer”
The picture was posted on a page that was designed for like-farming. The similar exploitative material was found to be posted on this page with the only aim of gathering followers.
Therefore, we urge that before choosing to share the photos of Syrian boy, please check the source. Never share images that are posted from like-farming pages.