335
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Fondots@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I have two thoughts about this, and I'll be the first to admit that I'm nowhere near qualified to say if either of them are even close to the mark.

The first, and probably more optimistic, is that they're trying to find people who are sympathetic to the pro-ukrainian/anti-putin cause and giving them sort of a plausible deniability to act on those sympathies. That way if they get caught they can say "No of course not, I would never help Ukraine, I love the motherland, the man on the phone said this was good for Russia and that's why I did it"

The second is that a lot of people out there are just plain stupid. When you listen to even regular run-of-the-mill phone scammers, people fall for some absolutely bullshit stuff, I really wouldn't be too surprised if you could, with a little perseverance and choosing your words carefully, convince the same kind of people who think it's perfectly reasonable that the IRS will take payments in the form of Roblox gift cards to go commit arson.

EDIT: those 2 thoughts are based on the assumption that these scammers actually exist, there is also of course, option 3- Russia's lying or is dumb, there are no scammers doing this, the people doing this know full well what they're doing, and either A- this is just the government trying to cover it up with a bullshit story about scammers convincing people to do it, or B- that's the story the people doing this are giving and the Russian government is actually dumb enough to believe it.

this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
335 points (98.0% liked)

World News

39045 readers
2913 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS