Technology is advancing with more powerful inventions, simplified tasks, easy sharing, powerful connections, quick reading, and creative fun! But wait, did I mention sharing? Yes, I did, with the advent of the internet from past ages until now, digital sharing has never been difficult.
Read it online, oh see, the share buttons are here—Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Pinterest, WhatsApp, Tumblr, LinkedIn, just to mention but a few—tap it and there you go, a post shared!
Yes, it’s easier to share but that’s not all, it’s also easier to be caught in the act of feeding others with junk information. Pranks, hoaxes, scams and spam are also there! Sharing needless information has never been difficult as well.
Users find it convenient to share, that’s why they share. Users find it compelling to share, that’s why they share. Users find it fun to share, that’s why they share! Without giving much consideration to what they see, without investing much thought into what they read, and without analyzing what they receive, they just share.
If the whole world is made simple by technology but technology itself is made complex by the folks, then what’s the point?
Philemon O’Arpelleh
The hoax, prank, scam and spam complex
When you send a fabricated story, one which is just a made-believe— whether you are aware or not—is a way of helping to spread hoaxes. When you send one which promotes an act of cruel deception, that’s considered a prank. When you send a tricky note, link or any media with deceiving content, or practically a fraudulent deal, that’s a scam.
Did you send any unsolicited messages? That’s what’s considered spam. Messages that are intended to trick users into giving out personal information about themselves or others are termed phishing.
These are part of the issues we encounter each day. I’ll not leave out sharing of fake news. Web hosting and publishing are, in recent ages, less expensive in the internet space. With just a credit card, one can obtain a self-hosted domain name.
Even with free publishing platforms that come with extensive sub-domains; such as WordPress, Google’s Blogspot, and Tumblr among others, even the guys without a credit card or those who do not want to buy a hosting plan can set up a simple blog.
People, all in the name of money, will go the extra mile to earn a fortune online using available resources such as website monetization, and affiliate marketing among others. Website monetization involves all possible means of earning money; selling website content, and advertising.
Mostly through partnerships, a website owner displays the content of other publishers in the form of products and services as well as links to third-party advertisers. A percentage commission of the total earning is received by the publisher when users view or click such ads.
Publishers who are focused on earning more revenue turn to adopting resources that will maximize their gain at the expense of inexperienced and unsuspecting internet users. One way they achieve that is to drive heavy traffic to their website to increase their Ad views and click-through rate.
Hence, they employ fake news about celebrities and those in the higher offices using catchy excerpts and outrageous captions. They know some inexperienced internet users are mostly enticed by such techniques. For example, check the excerpt below:
“Breaking News: Nana Ado Hands Over Power to Bawumia”
It has been confirmed by CNN this morning that the President of the Republic of Ghana, Nana Addo, has handed over power to his Vice, Dr Bawumia in the early hours of this morning in London where the President is currently resting. This decision came after a closed-door meeting held by the council of state and cabinet of the government.
According to the media adviser to Nana, Mr Sumkpali, President Akufo handed over his 50,000 mAh power bank to Bawumia, his vice, to enable him to charge his phone whose battery is down as a result of the lack of electricity in the country!
— Source:
www.fakify.com
At first glance what did you think? Did you notice how the caption (title) of the “news” was so catchy? And the first paragraph? If this was to be published on a website with the first paragraph being a summary of the news, an inexperienced user will just take it from there and share thinking it’s true.
But a wise reader will read the full content and notice it’s just a joke! That’s the point, this is how most of the fake news we encounter is published and spread.
Hoaxes
In some instances, the whole news may be crafted with a “sugar content” including catchy images among other enticing techniques from word one to the last drop of a word. And people will not use their power of reasoning to consider the details.
They will just believe it all because it is on the internet. In this case, sharing goes on and on, within seconds and the whole internet becomes a ‘cloud of lies’. This happens because of easy sharing on social media. From a friend to friends, to their friends of friends and it keeps on spreading.
Pranks, Scams and Phishing
Also, there is the technique of “drag them to me and I’ll pay you”. This results in tricking people to sign up for products and services they don’t need, clicking on malicious links as well as forcing them to give out sensitive information without them noticing it. What goes into this is simple.
Publishers may post attractive updates about winning gifts, bonuses usually in big names such as; free data (internet) bundles, huge cash offers, cars, free product or service offers, gift cards and many more, just by filling out an online form, liking a page and its related posts on social media, sharing a post and even taking surveys.
This is what happens; the inexperienced internet users will just follow along with the hope of winning and before they realize it, they’ve sold out sensitive information for a zero gift.
This happens in many surveys where the users are lured to give out their email addresses, telephone numbers and other personal data to help verify their identity and to aid in delivering their gift or bonus at the end of the survey (or draw). The fact is, after giving out this information, a user gets nothing but rather redirected to an advertiser’s landing page or another malicious website.
Also, the personal information given out may be sold to third-party advertisers who will, in turn, use the contact details to spam the users at other times. This may come in the form of sending them unsolicited emails and text messages about new products and services (junk advertising).
In some cases, the same users may be drawn into other scams. This trick and harvest game has been on the internet for a long time. There have been numerous education about such scams but some internet users are still ignorant just because they fail to learn security tips about the internet and social media.
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