If you’ve been anywhere on social media recently, you’ve likely seen the #blueforsudan tag going around. You then change you social media photo to the blue background because why wouldn’t you want to show support for such a devastating event. Going another step forward, you decide to look for charity accounts because all it takes is a click/share/like to help. Right?
There are plenty of “charity” accounts going around for this cause as seen above. But what you may not know is that these accounts are scams, fake accounts trying to collect likes and followers. At the end of the day, nothing is actually done for those in Sudan who are struggling.
Now you might be wondering, why would anyone want to do something so terrible? What could anyone gain from taking advantage of #BlueforSudan?
Well, simply put, the owners of these “fake” accounts are often trying to take advantage of high traffic topics. They want to increase their followers and likes in order to receive sponsorships and advertising profits.
How can you tell which accounts are real versus which are fake?
For starters, there are a few ways to tell what accounts are legitimate.
a. Do your research, look online. If you don’t see anything about it at all other than a single account, it’s likely that it is not real.
b. Look at some accounts which are dedicated to exposing fake accounts such as @exposinginstascams.
c. Look in the comments. Sometimes there can be warning from other users.
Worse comes to worse, don’t do anything that these accounts are asking for. Instead, look for legitimate sources who are hosting donations and etc such as UNICEF and WFP.
Did you know that some of these accounts were scams? What are your thoughts on people taking advantage of the crisis? Let us know in the comments below.