owlectomy: A squashed panda sewing a squashed panda (Default)
[personal profile] owlectomy
Wednesday's Criminal Minds episode had a killer who was finding victims to kill through social networking sites, and streaming videos of the murders on the internet. The moral of the story was, don't put any of your personal information online, because the internet will kill you.

At the same time... two young Russian women had paid $3000 to a travel agency that had promised to arrange temporary Visas for them in the US, and had lined up jobs for them as lifeguards in Virginia Beach. When they arrived in Washington DC the jobs had fallen through. They were being instructed to go to a nightclub in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn at midnight to meet a guy who'd give them hostess jobs.

[Brighton Beach is a Russian neighborhood in Brooklyn, which also has a certain amount of organized crime.]

A friend across the country thought this was about a 9.6 on the sketchometer, and tried to convince them not to go. He asked Metafilter, and though the answers confirmed that this is how a lot of sex trafficking starts out, he couldn't convince his friends not go to to New York.

The internet sprang into action.

It's good to be concerned about your privacy on Facebook. It's good to think twice about the kind of data you're broadcasting and who you're broadcasting it to. But the best of human generosity and human kindness are just as present on the internet as anywhere else.

(no subject)

22/5/10 14:04 (UTC)
littlebutfierce: (oofuri warm hands manga)
Posted by [personal profile] littlebutfierce
Yeah, when I read that thread I kind of wanted to cry. Not, um, that it takes much these days, but... yeah. Perhaps I have been fortunate, but my internet circles have generally been filled with at least as much warmth & kindness as with malice.

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