Education is key to stop online scams

With most of us sharing more of our lives online, the risk of becoming victims rises

Online, it can be hard to tell who you are talking to (Silvia Rázgová / The National)

Anyone who has been the victim of an online scam, especially one involving blackmail, deserves sympathy. But it can hardly be denied that there are many of us who, when we hear of a victim sending explicit messages, videos or photographs to someone else, wonder what on Earth was going through the mind of the victim. Why, we ask, would you send such a photo of yourself in the first place?

A growing number of people must be asking themselves that question, as our special report yesterday makes clear that “sextortion” crimes in the country are on the increase. Yet those who commit these crimes are subtle and willing to play the long game. Moreover, as the nature of friendship has changed, scams have begun to mimic the trajectory of a real friendship.

Let’s start with that. It is very common for social media users to have “friends” or “followers” who they do not know, or who are only known to their friends. Often they will start conversations with these friends, and that friendship, lived online via private messages and photo sharing, can come to seem real. Indeed, at a time when so much of our communication even with our closest family is conducted via messaging apps, it is real. It should be no surprise that two people who communicate for so long should begin to feel intimacy for one another.

Scammers capitalise on this by mimicking friendship, approaching victims via their supposed friends, talking about common interests and gradually persuading the victims that the relationship is real. It is only after the victim has handed over private information that it becomes clear this “person” they have been communicating with is not a friend and probably not even who they say they are.

Vigilance, then, is essential, as is verifying that the person behind the computer is who they say they are. It also means educating teenagers and young adults, in particular, on the dangers, as these people, while the quickest to adopt new technology, are often ill-equipped emotionally to handle the relationships that result from them.

Blackmail and “sextortion” is awful in any society, but it has particular ramifications in conservative societies, where even certain written conversations could be seen as shameful. Technology brings many benefits but it also brings dangers – and those who spend most of their time in the virtual world are often most at risk.