Mutual aid spam is becoming a problem on the Fediverse.
And to be sure, I’m not against mutual aid. What I am against is spam.
This person has not verified who she is – or even if the profile picture is hers. Additional research on her name states she is a scammer with a record of grifting. I am therefore skeptical that any donations will help anyone in need.
Folks, please be cautious with mutual aid requests. Yes, people sometimes need help. But people also lie.
@fediverse@lemmy.world
Is it weird that I’ve never heard this term “mutual aid” before this thread but apparently everyone here knows all about it?
Anyway. There’s just no way I’d give real money to someone asking for it like this because for every real person there must be a dozen scammers at least. It honestly seems crazy to me that this could work and people could send money.
If people are giving money away like this then they’re part of the problem IMO. You’re encouraging scammers, and perpetuating the practice, diverting money away from the people who actually need it.
Mutual aid is not giving random internet assholes money because they begged for it. I’m not saying they should be banned from doing so, but calling it mutual aid is 100% a scam. Mutual aid is given freely, within a pre-established network.
Hosting a friend on your couch for a week cause they’re in between apartments is mutual aid. Feeding your friends without expecting anything in return is mutual aid. Enabling e-begging is not mutual aid.
I guess in this case it’s OP that labeled it as mutual aid rather than the requester.
May be an American thing? I don’t know have never heard of it or encountered it.
It’s a very terminally online leftist thing. You would see it in communist/anarchist leftist spaces, people retweeting posts of disabled/neurodivergent people asking for help with rent.
I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with it, and kudos to those who donate. But it quickly turns into a popularity/disability contest of who can fit the most disability categories in a GoFundMe.
Aha. I consider myself leftist, but not in the ml corner. I had never encountered it.
Cheers for explaining!
Americans have had to invent novel terms to avoid using the ‘s’ or ‘c’ word with politics. ‘Mutual aid’ is a term usually used to refer tk grassroots organizing of communities to cover basic needs like food and medicine.
Referring to a common internet scam as ‘mutual aid’ is doing more work to smear the term than anything.
I first heard it in 2019 or 2020 from the queer community but I have a feeling it has deeper roots
Originally a concept by late 19th century anarchist Peter Kropotkin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mutual_Aid:_A_Factor_of_Evolution