Spam Spotting (Not the delicious snack meat - the other kind)

This has absolutely nothing to do with sewing or sewing machines or even ironing boards. But, I've noticed that my favorite sewing group on Facebook has been getting bombarded with spam recently. So, I've been making a little noise about it and a few of my fellow group members have told me that they aren't seeing any of it. I don't want to "share" spam, so I figured I'd post some screen shots of what I'm seeing here and include a little additional info that wouldn't fit in a FB post.

Here's a sample of the sort of off-topic junk that I've been seeing a lot of over the past week or so:

This one is a video, apparently about commercial fishing. Some of the stuff that has been posted lately is actually mildly interesting. There was one about poured epoxy counter tops that I actually watched, although it didn't explain how the process works and was generally just three minutes' worth of useless eye candy. Since this stuff is posted by people with fake profiles (more on that in a second), I'm not inclined to click on anything in the posts to find out more. 

They've all been short bits of video on random topics that might be of interest to almost anyone. But, why post them in a sewing group? What's the incentive? Yes, it's possible that a legitimate member of the group found this interesting and, despite the fact that it's completely off-topic, felt compelled to share it with us. But, the people who are posting this junk aren't legitimate members of the group. And, the sources of the original posts are questionable too. Let's have a look. 

First, as you can see, this video was posted not to my timeline but directly to the sewing group "Madam Sew." It was shared to the group by an "Alexander Johnston," who actually is a member of the group. Except. . . that she's almost certainly not a real person. Here's what comes up when you click on "her" FB profile name (the red marks are mine): 

I don't really believe that's "Alexander" in the profile photo. One thing I've noticed about these spammer accounts is that the profile pictures are always a different flavor of eye candy. Some of them have been overtly sexy. This one is a little more subtle, but you've got the long, long hair, the thin, tan legs, the cute little white sneakers, and the suggestive arrangement of clothing so that you can't really be sure that she's actually wearing anything under that jacket. Trust me, it's a sexy photo and it's meant to be sexy. It's exactly the sort of photo that a significant number of guys would be inclined to click on and send a friend request to. Which makes it even more suspicious that they're posting this stuff in a sewing group. I think we all agree that guys are a tiny minority in the amateur sewing world. If "Alexander" is looking to add more guy friends to her FB friends list, there are lots of groups that I'd consider more promising.  

Also note that "Alexander" has only two items on her timeline: an update to her profile picture (shown above) and an update to her cover photo. Both on the same date, November 15th of last year. Nothing before that or since then. She's been on FB for a roughly three months and has posted nothing to her own timeline. It's as though her entire account was created for the sole purpose of sharing some random video about fishing to our little sewing group. To me, that's weird. 

Then there's that Friends list of hers. "Alexander" has 84 friends. If you open her entire friend list (which I did), you'll see that the vast majority of her "friends" appear to be Vietnamese guys, with a handful of Arab guys and less than 5 other females thrown in for good measure. I have nothing against Arabs or anyone from Vietnam. But, "Alexander" doesn't look Arabic or Vietnamese to me. Most people have at least a few friends who look a lot like themselves. That's just human nature. Not "Alexander," though. She's apparently a sexy, young international woman of mystery with a particular interest in commercial fishing and sewing and surprisingly few gal friends. 

Then we have the page where "Alexander" found the fish video and shared it from, "I love you since 1892 - Historical Fiction." What an odd name for a FB page. Especially one which seems to have absolutely no posts about 1892 or historical fiction or romance. 

It has no confirmed page owner, but it's managed by about a dozen people, mostly from Vietnam and the Philippines. A few in the US. It's been around since August of 2017 and has a three-year history of posting pretty much nothing but random videos like this one.

I have no idea what these people are up to. Maybe they just have too much time on their hands and really like posting and sharing short video clips about random topics for our entertainment. But, that seems unlikely. I'm pretty sure they're up to something that I don't want to be a part of. And, even if they aren't, I didn't join a sewing group to watch videos of snakes eating frogs or commercial fishing boats at work. It looks like a spammer ring which FB is unwilling to deal with. So, all we can do is report their posts to the group admins and block each fake "member" as they pop up.

For what it's worth, I like Spam, the kind that comes in a can and inspired the classic eponymous Monty Python hit song. It's delicious. But, that has nothing to do with my interest in sewing.