Is it okay to beg for money on Mastodon?

[randahl@mastodon.social]

Is it okay to beg for money on Mastodon?

Every week I see accounts asking for money, often tagging me or others directly.

I support recognized aid organisations, but these direct requests make me concerned, because as a Mastodon user I have no way of verifying if the requests are legitimate, or some nefarious person is pretending to be a person in need.

So my question is, should Mastodon servers have a policy about begging, and if so, what should the policy be?

[cstamp@mastodon.social]

@randahl I think it would be too much work for the hosts of the instances to verify. I think folk can ask, and it's up to responders to verify. It would get complicated otherwise, as people also market their businesses. It's easy to mute and block if annoyed.

[sebastianhahn@mastodon.world]

I block each and everyone of these begging accounts the moment they ask me for money. I donate to quite a variety of official organizations, and I see no need to hand out money to any person (or bot?) posting pics of hungry kids. There is no way to telling these are legit causes, so no money from me. Never.

[only_ohm@mas.to]

@randahl

Isn't the point of decentralization that there's room for servers that have a wide range of different policies, and for servers that have no policy at all?

[realgnomidad@mastodon.social]

@randahl I usually mute or block the accounts. I agree with your points, personally, but if some instances want to promote community help like this they should be allowed to do so. As already pointed out, not hard to mute/block the accounts.

[sanderde@mstdn.ca]

@randahl

There’s other vehicles to solicit funds for various requirements, ie GoFundMe or Buy Me a Coffee.

Requests for direct funds on Mastodon should be limited to keeping the instances operating.

[tshirtman@mas.to]

@randahl i think not all request are going to be legit, but some certainly are, it's hard to know the difference, and it's hard to tell people they shouldn't ask if they need help, it's to each of us to decide when we are confident enough to give, how comfortable we are with the risk of either giving to someone who is taking advantage, or not giving to someone who needs it.

Filters are rarely perfect, you can generally only trade false positives for false negatives.

[randahl@mastodon.social]

@bodhipaksa I fully understand your concern about the word begging. Do you have any suggestions for a more neutral term?

I am simply trying to find a well-known word to describe direct person to person aid (a citizen of Gaza requesting donations) as opposed to organised aid (e.g. Red Cross aid).

[randahl@mastodon.social]

@only_ohm yes.

I just noticed that there is no policy about this on mastodon.social for instance.

[grootinside@troet.cafe]

@randahl
If someone unknown would tag me (personally) begging for money i'd mute/block instantly bc of above reasons.
If that'd happen repeatedly i'd set up a filter or something.

Don't think it should be a generalised policy of the fediverse. Generalised policies tend to "go to far".
One idea: Question/report to the admin of the beggingacount instance? "Verified/legitimate? Can you provide a source if?" But only if one feels like it could be real.

[jonasdahl@expressional.social]

@randahl Good question. I have the same experience and noticed the same picture of starving kids in different profiles. Could be a potential problem for Mastodon if people finds it unsafe to be here. Just my opinion.

[dariozanette@mastodon.uno]

@randahl

@devol interesting question (from other istances).

[nomdeb@mstdn.social]

@randahl I do not respond to direct requests from unknown people, however dear to my heart their cause or circumstances may be. I may respond to people I know (or have been following for a while) either for themselves, or who personally know a person and share details. Like you, I donate to recognized aid organizations only, otherwise.

[only_ohm@mas.to]

@randahl

Incidentally, @aral, do you want to weigh in on this? It seems like your bailiwick.

[paradegrotesque@mastodon.sdf.org]

@randahl

It's called 'mutual aid' and it is something accepted on Mastodon.

It's based on the idea that you may be able to help today, but also that you may need help yourself tomorrow.

[masek@infosec.exchange]

@randahl As long as it doesn’t drown out other content, I would not introduce rules.