Scam Bucket: Political/hate texts and what to do about them

Just when you thought the political fundraising texts were done, you get this screamer on your phone…

Now that reads like pretty much every unsolicited email and text someone receives before election day, but they are supposed to stop the day after. In this case, however, they are increasing in frequency according to several security experts. Of course, it’s a fraud.

If you make the mistake of not having a VPN and other security controls on your devices, clicking on the link not only takes you to a phishing site, it also collects information about you to increase the frequency of the communications. But note the URL. The name of this type of fraud is, “give-red” so the fraudsters are not even hiding what they are doing. The websites are modeled after the Winred and other conservative political action committees (PAC). So far, no one has reported similar scams for liberal PACs, but it isn’t out of the question. However, several studies that have been reported in this magazine have shown that conservative voters are more likely to fall prey to these schemes.

Hate and hooliganism

But it isn’t just financial scams filling email inboxes and texts. Conservative hooliganism is on the rise all over the world leading up to and after the November 5 election.

Cyjax, a threat intelligence company in the UK has been tracking extremist online activity since several months before the election. According to Chris Spinks, head of operations at Cyjax, the activity peaked on November 11 before falling off a cliff on the November 15.

Scammers saw this as a good way to put on time pressures alongside capitalizing on fears within the community. These scammers do know their jobs and are experts on understanding an opportunity, especially when there is emotional tension within a community,” he explained.

Cheap and anonymous hate

Spinks said the scammers use bespoke but cheap domains to build and execute a scam tactic. The more enticing the message is to like-minded people, the more likely it is to be forwarded to others within the recipients’ connections. “This almost acts as a human algorithm, with people likely to engage in the emotive theme being ‘targeted’ not realizing it was a scam.”

But the activity was not limited to cheating people out of money. Much of the activity has been to sew fear. These tactics have been well reported in the past week. The victims were people of color and were sent to individuals by name. For example:

Spinks said crime and extremist groups feel beyond the reach of Law Enforcement through believed anonymity. In the UK, courts have proven that to be less than true in that country and handed down heavy sentences to those incited racial hatred online and causing the August riots.

In the US, anonymity has become an option but not necessarily required. Individuals are taking the online suggestions and verbally assaulting people on the streets, believing the incoming administration will protect them under the banner of “free speech.” They may have a point.

How to deal with it

Unfortunately, there is no way for individuals to stop it from happening on most commercial platforms. Telecommunication companies have no financial reason for stopping it and are protected from prosecution, civil or criminal, by national laws. Social media companies are protected by the same laws and are, instead financially motivated to encourage the behavior because this type of content boosts engagement. And engagement means advertising revenue.

This activity is a very compelling reason to abandon commercial platforms and move to non-profit, non-commercial, and platforms like Signal, Mastodon and even, to a degree, BlueSky. That doesn’t mean you have to stop accepting commercial text messaging apps, but it does mean de-emphasizing them and encouraging your personal and family groups to switching to them.

This type of defense is starting to grow. Meta’s Threads, Bluesky and Mastodon have seen growth in the millions over the past few weeks. Elon Musk’s X has lost so many users that it’v value is now below that of the Trump Media & Technology company. That raises the potential of X being acquired by Trump Media. Such a move would increase the user base of Truth Social giving it credibility, albeit only with conservative hate groups. If that happens, the financial loss to Musk might mean he will never have to pay taxes again.

Ultimately, the best defense is to abandon toxic platforms altogether as adequate alternatives exist