Media
Social media is the best thing for fraud since money. Here's how to stay safe – CNBC
Financial fraud has been around for centuries, destroying the lives and fortunes of countless victims around the world. But the most recent crop of con artists has an advantage that Charles Ponzi and even Bernie Madoff never dreamed of: social media. It may be the most effective tool for fraudsters since money itself.
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“I wouldn’t say it’s changed the nature of fraud in America, but it’s definitely made it more accessible to the average person,” author and social media expert B.J. Mendelson told CNBC’s “American Greed.”
Take the case of Anna Delvey, who had much of New York society convinced she was a German heiress, a fashion icon and an up-and-coming entrepreneur. Former Vanity Fair photo editor Rachel Williams was among those taken in, and she told “American Greed” that Delvey’s social media accounts were a big reason.
“I had seen Anna in photos on Instagram and saw that she had over 40,000 Instagram followers,” Williams said. “She had a lot of artsy photos of travel and art and shopping, pictures with people in the fashion world.”
The two became fast friends. Indeed, Anna had lots of friends in high places, and she managed to get many of them to pay for a lavish life of parties, high fashion and international travel. She even came tantalizingly close to securing more than $20 million in credit from a big New York bank to create an arts and social club to be called “The Anna Delvey Foundation.”
Her flashy lifestyle and legions of social media followers notwithstanding, Anna was not Anna Delvey. She was Anna Sorokin, born in Russia. And while she did come to the U.S. from Germany, where her family had moved when she was a teenager, she was no heiress. She was a criminal. A New York jury convicted her on five out of seven criminal counts, including theft of services and attempted grand larceny. A judge sentenced her last year to four to 12 years in prison.
What is it about social media that so effectively supercharges frauds by Sorokin, aka Delvey, and so many others? Mendelson said it is a function of human nature.
“The way our brains are wired, we’re not set up to look for fraud,” he said. “If something looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, more often than not, it’s a duck, at least that’s what our brain tells us.”
Mendelson, author of the book “Social Media is Bulls—,” said platforms that rely heavily on images are especially tricky because of our trusting nature.
“We’re very visual creatures. We’re more likely to take in information, and unless something seems really off, we’re more likely to believe it,” he said.
To protect yourself, put the images that you see on Instagram and other visual platforms through a reverse image search, pasting or uploading the picture into Google or your favorite search engine.
“A lot of fake accounts will generally want to ‘populate,’ which means fill out their account with content, and what they do is they steal imagery from all sorts of places,” Mendelson said. “You can do a reverse image search to see if that image was stolen.”
Regardless of the platform, Mendelson cautioned against merely looking at the number of followers. Consider how the social media figure interacts with them.
“If they have a million followers, but only 10 people are interacting with all their posts, that should be a serious red flag. That can mean that there’s bots. That can mean it’s just a spam account of some other kind,” he said.
Next, check to see what those followers say. Look for the telltale signs that the followers are not real.
“The most common one is it just says ‘thanks’ over and over and over again. Or it’s just a short sentence that’s repeated in every comment that they leave on people’s profiles,” he said. “That’s usually the work of either a bot or someone that was hired to populate the account.”
And if you interact with the account yourself, beware of someone who is too responsive.
“If you message someone and they message you right back at, like, 3 o’clock in the morning, that should be a sign that maybe something is not legit with that account,” Mendelson said. “Maybe someone overseas is piloting that account and it’s not actually based in the United States.”
Fraudsters do not only use their own accounts to pull off their scams. They also use yours. Beware of the information you share in your social media posts, or in posts that you respond to such as those Facebook questionnaires asking about various aspects of your life. You could be giving away the keys to your identity, your passwords, even your home.
“If you’re going on vacation don’t share it,” Mendelson said. “You can share it after you come back from your vacation, but what happens is there’s all sorts of schemers and fraudsters who might be looking for people that are away, and if you’re away, you could be robbed.”
Things can be especially tricky on professional platforms like LinkedIn. Identity thieves troll those sites looking for information.
“If you put on LinkedIn that you were at SUNY Potsdam from 2004 to 2006 and you log into your mortgage account and one of the security questions is, ‘What college did you attend?’ that person is one step closer to breaking into your account,” Mendelson said
Make sure your privacy settings prevent strangers from viewing your personal information, and do not connect with people you do not know. When setting up your security questions on websites that require it, be careful not to provide information that a hacker can also find on your social media pages.
“The more information someone has on you, the easier it is to steal your identity,” Mendelson said.
The social media landscape is filled with influence, both real and manufactured. While some posts seem to magically go viral, companies pay millions to social media figures—known as “influencers”— to plug their products.
The practice can be perfectly legal, of course. But Mendelson warned not to get taken in by manufactured hype.
“Anyone can be an influencer and that’s the problem,” he said. “You can certainly fake it until you make it. You can certainly create a persona of some kind that fits within some kind of niche and then have brands come to you that want to give you money.”
To guard against being unduly influenced, Mendelson said people should use their head when they use the internet.
“When you use Instagram, when you use Twitter, you’re looking at your phone. You’re in the middle of other things. We know our brains can’t multitask, so you’re very susceptible to falling for all sorts of hoaxes,” he said. “So, as cheesy as it sounds, stop and think and fact-check if you really need to. Google is your friend.”
Without a little skepticism, he said, you run the risk of going the route of Delvey’s victims.
“She looked the part of this wealthy heiress that was living the lifestyle,” he said, “because when it comes to imagery, we’re very easily fooled, that’s all you really need to do, is look the part.”
See how Anna Sorokin transformed herself into “heiress” Anna Delvey and lived the high life at other people’s expense. Catch an ALL NEW episode of “American Greed,” Monday, Feb. 24, 2020, at 10 p.m. ET/PT only on CNBC.
For a bunch of people who supposedly hate social media, we sure do spend a lot of time on it.
Just 33 percent of U.S. adults have “some or a lot” of trust in social media, according to a late 2022 report from the Pew Research Center(opens in a new tab), and people who spend time on social media are more likely to experience mental health problems(opens in a new tab), including depression. According to BroadbandSearch, an independent research site that compares internet providers, the average American spends a little more than two hours a day on (opens in a new tab)the very same hurtful platforms they purport not to trust. And it seems like new social media platforms — any sort of online space in which people are publicly chatting with each other, including Facebook and Twitter and TikTok and, yes, LinkedIn — are popping up every day.
There aren’t loads of social media platforms that are brand new in 2023, but there are dozens that we spend our time on every day that have had some pretty radically nightmarish moments in 2023. Unfortunately, as it is the middle of the year, it’s time to rank these nightmares.
While evaluating these social media platforms, I’ve considered five questions:
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How widely-used is the app?
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How grumpy does the app make me because of the content?
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How grumpy does the app make me because of the interface?
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How likely is the app to disrupt democracy?
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How annoying are the influencers on that app?
There are many apps that launched recently that didn’t make the list — Geneva, Diem, Melon, Pineapple, Somewhere Good — because they just aren’t widely-used enough to asses just how awful they are. I’m omitting far-right social media apps like Parler and Gab — they are all worse than the apps I’m writing about here, and their content is too vile for me to make fun of in a listicle.
Here are the social media platforms that have stolen our brains so far in 2023, from least bad to worst. This list is just my opinion, but it is also correct.
Mastodon
A very nice escape from Twitter for the 20 minutes it was relevant.
BeReal
Fine, but no one uses it anymore so it is now therefore boring. Boring, to be clear, is not necessarily an insult when it comes to social media (see: Facebook further down the list, which I wish was more boring).
Artifact
Boring but alright.
BlueSky
This app seems fine but I don’t have access to it. Send me an invite and I will do my best to accurately review it.
Lemon8
A new app that is annoying to me, but others find it lovely.
There are LinkedInfluencers(opens in a new tab), which is annoying but not actively harmful.
Substack
Stay with me, but the newsletter platform is kind of killing it this year. It launched chats and a Notes feature to rival Twitter and some of the more popular Substack writers make a pretty good living from their newsletters. It’s this far down, though, because Substack isn’t without its problems: The platform allows some pretty hateful speech, like the transphobic newsletter from Graham Linehan.
Snapchat
This would be higher if it didn’t force Snapchat AI onto every single user.
TikTok
Can be vile, but can also feed you a pretty consistent number of frog videos. It’s lower down because entire nations are banning it for — you guessed it — potential threats to democracy.
I swear to God if I get fed one more video about dieting I’m going to scream.
Unfortunately for Facebook, most of us simply refuse to forget 2016(opens in a new tab) and the Facebook Papers. There’s an old saying in Tennessee(opens in a new tab) — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, ruin democracy once, shame on — shame on you. Ruin democracy twice — you can’t get democracy ruined again.
Elon Musk 🥴
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VIENNA, June 2 (Reuters) – OPEC has denied media access to reporters from Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal to report on oil policy meetings in Vienna this weekend, reporters, Bloomberg and people familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The three media organizations are among the world’s leading suppliers of financial news and information. They report on the outcome of policy meetings between OPEC and its allies, where ministers make decisions that impact the price of the world’s most traded commodity.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies is a group known as OPEC+ and includes top oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia. Ministers from the group, which pumps more than 40% of the world’s oil supply, are scheduled to gather on Saturday and Sunday for regular biannual meetings.
OPEC staff declined on Friday to give media accreditation to Reuters journalists to cover the event. The staff handling media accreditation at one of Vienna’s luxury hotels said they could not issue accreditation without an invite. They did not comment when asked why Reuters reporters received no invites.
OPEC has not responded to requests for comment from Reuters this week on why it has not invited or accredited Reuters reporters for the meet.
“We believe that transparency and a free press serve both readers and markets, and we object to this restriction on coverage,” a spokesperson for Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters Corp (TRI.TO), said on Friday.
“Reuters will continue to cover OPEC in an independent, impartial and reliable way in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.”
A reporter from Bloomberg was also denied accreditation on Friday, a person familiar with the matter said.
A Bloomberg spokesperson confirmed on Friday the company has not been given accreditation to cover the OPEC meeting.
The Wall Street Journal did not respond to a request for comment.
Reporters from the three outlets, many of whom have been covering OPEC meetings for years, did not receive invitations from OPEC ahead of the meeting.
Without accreditation, journalists cannot enter the OPEC Secretariat where the ministers meet, or attend press conferences during the event.
Reporters at other media outlets including trade publications Argus and Platts received accreditation on Friday. Argus confirmed its reporters have been accredited and will attend. Platts did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Media
OPEC denies media access to Reuters, Bloomberg, WSJ for weekend policy meets – Yahoo Canada Finance
VIENNA (Reuters) – OPEC has denied media access to reporters from Reuters, Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal to report on oil policy meetings in Vienna this weekend, reporters, Bloomberg and people familiar with the matter said on Friday.
The three media organizations are among the world’s leading suppliers of financial news and information. They report on the outcome of policy meetings between OPEC and its allies, where ministers make decisions that impact the price of the world’s most traded commodity.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies is a group known as OPEC+ and includes top oil producers Saudi Arabia and Russia. Ministers from the group, which pumps more than 40% of the world’s oil supply, are scheduled to gather on Saturday and Sunday for regular biannual meetings.
OPEC staff declined on Friday to give media accreditation to Reuters journalists to cover the event. The staff handling media accreditation at one of Vienna’s luxury hotels said they could not issue accreditation without an invite. They did not comment when asked why Reuters reporters received no invites.
OPEC has not responded to requests for comment from Reuters this week on why it has not invited or accredited Reuters reporters for the meet.
“We believe that transparency and a free press serve both readers and markets, and we object to this restriction on coverage,” a spokesperson for Reuters, the news and media division of Thomson Reuters Corp, said on Friday.
“Reuters will continue to cover OPEC in an independent, impartial and reliable way in keeping with the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.”
A reporter from Bloomberg was also denied accreditation on Friday, a person familiar with the matter said.
A Bloomberg spokesperson confirmed on Friday the company has not been given accreditation to cover the OPEC meeting.
The Wall Street Journal did not respond to a request for comment.
Reporters from the three outlets, many of whom have been covering OPEC meetings for years, did not receive invitations from OPEC ahead of the meeting.
Without accreditation, journalists cannot enter the OPEC Secretariat where the ministers meet, or attend press conferences during the event.
Reporters at other media outlets including trade publications Argus and Platts received accreditation on Friday. Argus confirmed its reporters have been accredited and will attend. Platts did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
(Reporting by Alex Lawler, Dmitry Zhdannikov, Ahmad Ghaddar, Julia Payne, Maha El Dahan; writing by Simon Webb; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
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OPEC denies media access to Reuters, Bloomberg, WSJ for weekend policy meets
