Scams and fraud proliferate on Facebook
By Brenda Norrell
Censored News
From the plagiarized news articles by reporters who never leave their homes, to the fundraising scams by the self-promoting, Facebook is a teeming hot cesspool of fraud.
There are of course wonderful posts there as well, but you have to be part private eye and part professional digger to unearth them.
The majority of news articles that I see posted on Facebook are plagiarized.
Not only do these stay-at-home plagiarizers benefit financially by stealing others work, but they avoid all the dangerous risks of being a reporter. They stay home and profiteer from others research. They let others pay the high price of travel to be present on news stories.
The majority of the popular Native websites are bankrolled by casinos. There is no need for them to plagiarize and steal copyrighted photos. They have money to pay photographers for photos, and send reporters out to cover the news. Indian Country Today is owned by the wealthy Oneida in New York. Yet, they don't actually have reporters out covering the news. For years ICT has relied on plagiarism.
Indianz owners, Ho Chunk Inc. in Nebraska, recently received an $80 million spy contract from the US for domestic and international spying. They don't have reporters out covering the news either. It is copy and paste news.
Many of the other news websites copy and paste with reckless disregard for the hard working journalists and activists out there, taking the risks, investing the time, and often spending their own money.
As for fundraisers, do some background checking before promoting or donating at fundraising sites. It easy for people to look ethical on Facebook -- even those who have been pocketing donations, and going on shopping sprees with donations for years.
Just because it appears on a fundraising website doesn't mean that the project will ever actually happen.
As for the non-profits, ask about their salaries, and the incoming grants that you never hear about. Grants to even small non-profits are often $100,000 to $200,000. Many times these huge grants are based on grassroots Indigenous struggles and the grassroots people are never informed about them. One popular topic for these huge grants is sustainable traditional foods.
The Christensen Fund is one of those giving out these large grants for sustainable food projects and the grassroots people at workshops are not informed of these grants. To make matters worse, the Christensen Fund money comes from mining, according to its website. Check the grants database on their website to see who has been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars for sustainable projects without letting the people know.
And if you think Native Seeds Search is being operated by Native people -- just take a stroll through their new plush building in Tucson. I didn't see any Native people the last time I was there. Are Native people benefiting from the sale of their ancestral seeds?
Most of the big non-profits pay their top folks $400,000 to $1 million annually in salaries and perks. This includes UNICEF, Save the Children and United Way. You can buy a lot of beans and notebooks with that. The Goodwill CEO makes millions. The Red Cross can't explain what happens to millions it receives. The salaries are on Charity Navigator.
But even small non-profits are often concealing salaries of $50,000 to $100,000.
If you're still skeptical, just scroll through Facebook. There's plenty of fraud there. And of course Big Brother is always watching your every move, tracking you there and across the Internet from Facebook.
At Facebook, all your log-in locations are saved. They know where you sleep at night, if you log-in, and who else sleeps there, if they log in to Facebook.
And that my friends is just creepy.
Censored News
From the plagiarized news articles by reporters who never leave their homes, to the fundraising scams by the self-promoting, Facebook is a teeming hot cesspool of fraud.
There are of course wonderful posts there as well, but you have to be part private eye and part professional digger to unearth them.
The majority of news articles that I see posted on Facebook are plagiarized.
Not only do these stay-at-home plagiarizers benefit financially by stealing others work, but they avoid all the dangerous risks of being a reporter. They stay home and profiteer from others research. They let others pay the high price of travel to be present on news stories.
The majority of the popular Native websites are bankrolled by casinos. There is no need for them to plagiarize and steal copyrighted photos. They have money to pay photographers for photos, and send reporters out to cover the news. Indian Country Today is owned by the wealthy Oneida in New York. Yet, they don't actually have reporters out covering the news. For years ICT has relied on plagiarism.
Indianz owners, Ho Chunk Inc. in Nebraska, recently received an $80 million spy contract from the US for domestic and international spying. They don't have reporters out covering the news either. It is copy and paste news.
Many of the other news websites copy and paste with reckless disregard for the hard working journalists and activists out there, taking the risks, investing the time, and often spending their own money.
As for fundraisers, do some background checking before promoting or donating at fundraising sites. It easy for people to look ethical on Facebook -- even those who have been pocketing donations, and going on shopping sprees with donations for years.
Just because it appears on a fundraising website doesn't mean that the project will ever actually happen.
As for the non-profits, ask about their salaries, and the incoming grants that you never hear about. Grants to even small non-profits are often $100,000 to $200,000. Many times these huge grants are based on grassroots Indigenous struggles and the grassroots people are never informed about them. One popular topic for these huge grants is sustainable traditional foods.
The Christensen Fund is one of those giving out these large grants for sustainable food projects and the grassroots people at workshops are not informed of these grants. To make matters worse, the Christensen Fund money comes from mining, according to its website. Check the grants database on their website to see who has been receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars for sustainable projects without letting the people know.
And if you think Native Seeds Search is being operated by Native people -- just take a stroll through their new plush building in Tucson. I didn't see any Native people the last time I was there. Are Native people benefiting from the sale of their ancestral seeds?
Most of the big non-profits pay their top folks $400,000 to $1 million annually in salaries and perks. This includes UNICEF, Save the Children and United Way. You can buy a lot of beans and notebooks with that. The Goodwill CEO makes millions. The Red Cross can't explain what happens to millions it receives. The salaries are on Charity Navigator.
But even small non-profits are often concealing salaries of $50,000 to $100,000.
If you're still skeptical, just scroll through Facebook. There's plenty of fraud there. And of course Big Brother is always watching your every move, tracking you there and across the Internet from Facebook.
At Facebook, all your log-in locations are saved. They know where you sleep at night, if you log-in, and who else sleeps there, if they log in to Facebook.
And that my friends is just creepy.
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