<figure id="attachment_366476" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-366476" style="width: 1280px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="3dd46269"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/03/67d4e6feb9e2c35a356c5a3fa44aa209.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-366476" class="wp-caption-text">SNS has become a familiar part of modern life, but it seems that some people are using it to commit fraud. &#8230;&#8230; *Photographs are for reference only.</figcaption></figure>
<p> In these days of chaotic and untrue information, the media literacy of recipients is being questioned, and social networking services are exploiting the &#8220;weak of heart&#8221; (an abbreviation of &#8220;weak information,&#8221; referring to those who cannot take in and use information). Businesses that exploit the &#8220;weak-minded&#8221; (people who cannot take in and use information) are constantly being created on social networking sites.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> Internet-based scams are not new, but the reasons for their acceleration can be attributed to the fact that the Internet and SNS have become much more familiar to the general public and the &#8220;population of suckers&#8221; has expanded, and &#8220;money can be transferred easily via the Internet.</p>
<p> As evidence, the Metropolitan Police Department announced in March 2012 that the number of victims of &#8220;SNS-type investment scams,&#8221; in which people are defrauded of money for investment purposes mainly through SNS, and &#8220;romance scams,&#8221; in which people are defrauded of money by making them fall in love, was on the rise last year, with the total amount of damage amounting to 45.52 billion yen. The amount of damage was as much as 45.52 billion yen last year.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> This amount is more than the 44.12 billion yen in damage from special scams, including &#8220;oleore scams,&#8221; which used to account for the majority of the total.</p>
<p> Among the many social networking scams, we would like to introduce three new scams that are gaining popularity.</p>
<h2> Why &#8220;Echo Photographs&#8221; Sell on Mercari</h2>
<p> She told me that she was pregnant with her boyfriend&#8217;s child and took an ultrasound photo of the little baby in her fourth week of pregnancy and put it up for sale on Mercari. At the time, I could not understand why echo photos would sell, but the reason became clear later.</p>
<p> There are people on social networking services known as &#8220;girls with a secret identity&#8221; who post naked photos of themselves or photos of themselves being fucked in order to gain support from men.</p>
<p> Of course, there are cases where echo photos are purchased as a pretext for pressuring a man in a relationship into marriage, as has been the practice for a long time. But nowadays, &#8220;to pressure a man into marriage&#8221; is not something that is a bit sympathetic.</p>
<p> If a girl who has been having relationships with an unspecified number of men on SNS posts a fake pregnancy test and an echo photo on SNS, saying, &#8220;I&#8217;m pregnant,&#8221; &#8220;I don&#8217;t know what to do&#8230;,&#8221; her male followers will instantly ask, &#8220;Are you all right? I&#8217;ll listen to what you have to say&#8221; and &#8220;DM me if you have a hard time. They take advantage of this.</p>
<p> For men who are not involved in a relationship, they will cleverly solicit support by saying things like, &#8220;I can&#8217;t talk to anyone about this, so I&#8217;m glad you listened to me,&#8221; or &#8220;I just need a little help with money.</p>
<p> Whether they are pregnant or not, they can raise tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars in no time. What if they find out? The relationship is only on social networking sites, where they don&#8217;t even know each other&#8217;s identities. It is impossible to chase them in real life, so all they have to do is run away.</p>
<p> Incidentally, there is an internet slang term for male users who frequently reply to certain female users&#8217; posts on X (formerly Twitter) and other social networking services: &#8220;penis knights. These men, who have lost their ability to make calm judgments, are easy prey for these women and are an important source of income.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" The reality of the AI-based scam business"></div>
<h2>AI generates and disguises erotic content</h2>
<p> It is still good if the girls behind the scenes are real people. In recent years, an increasing number of accounts have been attracting followers with sexy images using trendy AI (artificial intelligence) and making money by soliciting them to join monthly subscription sites.</p>
<p> These accounts first post photos of AI-generated images of women showing large cleavage or pants that look like they could be used as a &#8220;side dish. Then, when the number of posts has been secured to a certain extent and the number of followers has increased, they invite the users to join a monthly subscription site by saying, &#8220;Actually, we have opened a subscription site to publish more extreme photos.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> Depending on the plan, a registration fee of a few thousand yen or more will get you a lineup of videos that are comparable to adult videos, but without the mosaic.</p>
<p> Of course, since these are AI-generated photos, it is difficult to create complex angles of view that are close to the pubic area. In such cases, we occasionally mix in videos from the neck down, with the face cut off. It is a basic rule when deceiving people to mix in a little bit of truth rather than a lot of lies.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> One might honestly think, &#8220;You know what AI is, don&#8217;t you? However, the quality of AI is improving day by day, and above all, the intelligence of those who are fascinated by sex is extremely lowered.</p>
<p> This kind of spoofing of erotic content has existed for some time, combining photos of some high school student or member of society from social networking sites with videos or photos of a completely different person naked from the neck down, to create content that looks as if it were posted by that person. However, if the person in question notices this, he or she has no choice but to erase it, and it would be a terrible thing if he or she were sued. But AI is different. AI-based erotic content is a great way to hedge against risk.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Scouting scams posing as sex workers"></div>
<h2> Negative night job scouts who make their money through sex work placement.</h2>
<p> The above two are new scams on social networking services that take advantage of men&#8217;s sexual desires, but of course there are also scams targeting women. The scouts target host-crazed women and prostitutes.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> The modus operandi is as follows. Scouts buy SNS accounts from former sex workers who have quit the sex industry, and impersonate them. The scout asks the prostitutes to provide pictures of wads of cash they have earned or pictures taken at host clubs, and posts them saying, &#8220;I earned a lot of money today,&#8221; &#8220;I did the tower (champagne tower) ♡,&#8221; and so on, pretending that they have earned money and are playing freely. It is even better if there is a picture of glittering nails in the picture. This is so that followers will not know that they are impersonating someone else.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> After repeating such posts and gaining their trust, they would say, &#8220;I&#8217;m often asked&#8230;. This is the scout in charge of this project&#8221; and direct them to the scout&#8217;s own account or line that you have separately prepared. Once a woman is introduced to a brothel, the scout will continue to make a margin for the rest of her life until she quits the brothel. There is no easier or tastier business than this.</p>
<p> Other examples include the following: After purchasing an account with a large number of followers, the scout will pretend to be a papa activity account and say, &#8220;When I can&#8217;t make money through papa activity, I go to cabaret,&#8221; or &#8220;This person introduced me to this site. or &#8220;I found a god p on this site! The amount of points earned from each referral varies from site to site, but each referral can be anywhere from a few hundred yen to a few thousand yen. Of course, these points can be cashed in, so you can earn money just by doing this.</p>
<p> Certain sites introduced by famous online papa-active accounts are like affiliates with a high rate of return, since you can get as much as 5,000 yen if you get one person to register on the site. If you can abandon your morals, it is much better to promote a papa-active site than to be an affiliate on Rakuten or Amazon.</p>
<p> It is common for prostitutes to turn into scouts. If you are familiar with the Internet, you will be able to recognize the discomfort in the language used and the content of the posts and judge, &#8220;Oh, she must have sold her account,&#8221; or &#8220;Let&#8217;s unfollow her. However, without knowledge and antennae to detect such discrepancies, you will not be able to notice them.</p>
<p> As with any scam, if you do not have a sixth sense that tells you that something is wrong, you will not be able to notice the seeds of a scam scattered here and there.</p>
<div data-friday-nextpage-lead=" Echo photos actually being sold on Mercari"></div>
<h2> The existence of lists targeting the weak-minded</h2>
<p> I don&#8217;t want to say, &#8220;It&#8217;s the deceived who are at fault. However, there is no such a sweet story in the world. If there really is such a thing, we should know better that there is no way to tell such information to strangers via social networking sites.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> The person who runs the Sarewife (meaning wife who is having an affair) account on X is a single office worker with a lot of free time on his hands who loves infidelity dramas, and the person who posts her daily frugal meals as a poor girl on TikTok monetizes her account to a considerable amount of money and carries a Hermes Picotin in her personal life. In her personal life, she carries an Hermes Picotin.</p>
<p> SNS is full of falsehoods, and to take an investment offer from someone you have never actually met, or to send money out of kindness, is to fall into the trap of a scam that takes advantage of the weak-minded.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> If only that were the case, people who cannot make the right choice on social networking sites would be put on a list of the weak-minded and shared with them for a fee. A list of the &#8220;gullible&#8221; is worthless to the scammers.</p>
<p> Scams are evolving every day. The only thing we can do is to know what is going on, stop and think before any story, and protect ourselves.</p>
<figure id="attachment_366449" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-366449" style="width: 1360px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="f6fad9ad"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/03/1f0ab95961d1e5d14ad105d9ea0244dd-e1711699117254.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-366449" class="wp-caption-text"> Search the Internet and you will find products that imitate pregnancy tests that show a positive result.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_366472" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-366472" style="width: 1373px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="c74b0a96"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/03/cbccb79bcce6c305337dd46587fe5978.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-366472" class="wp-caption-text"> A product that imitates a pregnancy test that shows a positive result. Multiple listings, all of which show that they have been purchased.</figcaption></figure>
<figure id="attachment_366446" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-366446" style="width: 1367px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="a2f8a9ce"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2024/03/e8e286522297ebfe607d464fb83c9a87.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-366446" class="wp-caption-text"> Echo photos actually listed on Mercari.</figcaption></figure>


 Rika Sasaki

 Social networking services have become a familiar part of modern life, but some people are taking advantage of it to commit scams. Among the many social networking scams, we will introduce three new scams that are gaining popularity.

Behind the scenes of the social networking scam business that exploits the “information poor.

Access Ranking