Natalie is a 12 -year -old superstar. He is outgoing, intelligent, determined-and when he recently lost his hair with the treatment of B-cell leukemia, he said that it made him more aerodynamic. However, on a difficult road, Natalie is still rich.
But in the last week, foundation Natalie and his parents were created to support children affected by leukemia, seeing shocking updates on their social media accounts. Someone stole Natalie’s photo, equality and information, incorrectly reporting that Natalie had passed away, and was asking online for money to help in funeral expenses.
Unfortunately, the September childhood cancer awareness month has become a major goal for malicious cyber criminal. As the foundation, children and parents post photos and details about their cancer trips, scammers reproduce this information to create false accounts on social media and funding platforms. During the most dark times, when good people face the most effort of circumstances, the cancer awareness movement is working to bring hope, love and light to others. At the same time, the fraudsters are stealing, manipulating and lying, which is a mark of despair and despair in view of them.
The scheme is not new: With easy access to photos, videos and personal information, a cyber criminal fraud account and donation campaign can create exclusive now, on-demand generative AI, Deepfec apps and in the era of voice cloning software. This type of crime is much easier to carry out compared to making full fake charities (too) It happens on a large scaleBut the use of social media use and scams that scam sites such as site have become a bad game to scam.
In 2018, A Ohio mother shaved her little girl’s head To help in funding the treatment of fake cancer, to scam thousands of dollars from donors. In 2022, a story about scammers pulling on the heartbeat of 14,000 donors went viral: Three people set up a gofundme campaign Allegedly to benefit a homeless man in Philadelphia. Hoys, due to which criminals were restored and prison time for criminals, did not require much plan – in fact, a significant piece of evidence in the case was a text for a friend from a scammers who had a lesson for a friend. Reading“I had to do something bad to people.”
Crowdfonding platforms know that these scams exist. Goofandme Provides tips More to avoid fraudulent campaigns Guarantee If there is any problem, it will reimburse the donors. Government agencies and State Consumer Protection Office also know: The Better Bureau, who recently Informed On the Tikok Cons that requested a charitable donation, provides specific Guidance Crowdfonding avoids fraud. Nevertheless, quick Techdown content of these schemes on social media depends on the moderation policies and oversight.
To help their communities, social media updates, articles and grassroots are important for small foundations to help the funding campaign. This is as follows that the platform response time for scam claims and red-shrieled positions needs to be swift. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. And content is moderation Lose big tech supporters And dollars every day.
Although Facebook, Instagram, X, Tikokok And YouTube Use AI to help humans respond to violations against their content policies, the response time varies – as the success rate.
But the victims of this type of identity are still suffering. How can they protect themselves, using their images and information to give hopes to others in the fight against childhood cancer?
There are legal channels to protect photos, such as Copyright protection And this Digital Millennium Copyright ActBut the most easily accessible way to try Report and move down The fraud material itself is accompanied by platforms.
Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that new internal moderation processes will focus on dealing “Illegal and high-seriousness violations.” It remains to be seen that identity theft and copy is fit into that plan. Meta released one Community standard enforcement reportHighlighting that it took action on a billion “fake accounts” in the first few months of 2025. And, significantly, accounts associated with some scams Natalie were relatively quickly closed.
The use of social media for cancer awareness months seems to be what was created to start platforms: helping communities to connect and work together for the greatest purposes.
These public places should be protected from childhood cancer organizations and cybercaimers targeting individual children; And the month of breast cancer awareness has just begun. As we contact a new era of generative AI abilities, vigilant moderation and deception will be quite complicated and necessary – otherwise, the risk of exploiting the weakest people will overtake the optimism of the associated cyberspace.
Lisa Garber, Esk., Is a professor of cyber security and privacy attorney and assistant law, teaching at Wharton School and Draxel University’s Clin School of Law. His book, “Trust can. Business expert was published by Press.
