[tombert]

I don't think Kitboga (or any of the other scambaiting people) would disagree with anything you're suggesting. I agree that it's a systemic problem, and it is probably a job for regulators and maybe even the FBI/CIA.

I don't think any of these scambaiters are claiming that they're saving the world or "make much difference", but I think there can still be value in short-term solutions as well. It might take decades for politicians to actually solve the problem in a way that it needs to be, and in that time Kitboga wasting some time is making a small effect.

[lupusreal]

Kitbogas antics also bring visibility to the problem. He gets millions of views, millions of people made aware of the problem and how the scammers operate. If not for efforts like this, the scammer problem would be far less visible not least because the victims often conceal their victimhood out of shame or unwillingness to believe they've been had.

[bumby]

I would tend to agree if the stakes are small. But in this case, when you're dealing with human trafficking, there's a real chance their actions make the scenario much worse while being veiled in self-righteousness.

[tombert]

I guess what I take issue with is that you keep claiming that it's making the situation worse...How? In the short term what are the alternatives? Let the scammers keep trying to rip people off, with some level of success?

[bumby]

There's a couple things we need to agree on to get there.

1) A lot of this industry is based on human trafficking. I've linked elsewhere to a good podcast that explains this and others have chimed in with other references.

2) By wasting the scammer's time, you are putting them at risk of abuse because of #1.

So if you can agree that "increasing the risk of human physical violence to live out some vigilante sense of justice" is worse than "not," it leads to worse outcomes for disproportionately little net gain.

Edit: (sorry, I was actually editing this as you were already posting. I had already answered this in multiple other comments, so it was getting tiresome)

The UN is already working on diplomatic pressure in countries like Cambodia that seem to specialize in this sort of thing. Countries like China (where there are victims on both sides of the problem) have created movies [1], in part, to educate the populace. I'm not claiming there are any silver bullets, but I think the types of actions in the article are more about feeling like you're doing good than actually doing good. And it hits home because most of us have similar thoughts. It's a bit masturbatory in that regard, and I want to push back a bit on the idea that it's actually solving much of anything despite what our baser instincts are telling us.

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt28076784/

[tombert]

You didn't actually answer the question. I'll agree with both points (though I take a bit of issue with the second with some of the wording), but you didn't suggest any short term solutions.

ETA:

I want to clarify, these people will have violence inflicted on them if they're not collecting money. If Kitboga is wasting their time, they're not collecting money. If they just get a bad shuffle and don't get anyone gullible for a few days, they're also not collecting money. You seem to be purposefully ignoring this.

[bumby]

I think you are conflating two questions.

1) How do we not make things worse?

2) How do we solve the problem?

My whole point has been regarding #1. There is some probability that the scammers get "a bad shuffle" and get abused. However, if you deliberately waste their time, you have just increased that probability to 100%. I'm claiming that makes things worse.

If your new question is how do we solve the human trafficking problem that undergirds this industry, I'm afraid I don't think there's "this one hack" that can solve that. But at least we don't have to make things worse in the short term.

[tombert]

Ok, but this is the point that I think we disagree; I would think that the "bad shuffle" is what we want? I think you would agree that grandmother spending her entire retirement on Google Play cards is a bad thing. Deliberately wasting their time guarantees that at least that scammer is not extracting money from some random person. I'm having trouble seeing how that's a bad thing; all these scambaiters are doing is kind of forcing the "bad shuffle".

I think I must be misunderstanding because it genuinely seems to be that you're suggesting that the best course of action is to just let people get scammed for hundreds of thousands of dollars until there is a systemic solution. A systemic solution can take years, maybe decades.