Stop Typing "Amen" for Facebook Scammers

Earlier today, I saw the following post in my Facebook feed:

Notice that the photo has almost 17,000 shares. A closer look at the page, "Stories That Touch," reveals that they have recently re-branded. Here's their original profile picture, side-by-side with their new one:

And here's their original cover photo, side-by-side with their new one:

Obviously, this page has reinvented itself. If you look at their "Photos" section, you can see the exact moment when they changed from being a page devoted to generic workout videos (and female butts in yoga pants) to shamelessly exploiting sick people.

Remember the image at the beginning of this post? If you take a moment to right-click on the image (in Google Chrome) and "Search Google for image," you quickly learn that the picture has been stolen from a Facebook page called "Abigail's Joy."

Of course, you don't need to, because the scam page weirdly decided to include a photo credit:

Notice that the original post on "Abigail's Joy" doesn't ask for likes, amens, or shares.

This should be an obvious example of "like farming," where a Facebook page tricks people into commenting, clicking "Like," or sharing. Their goal is to make the page popular enough that it can be used to market a product, promote a scam, or steal credit card information. (Sometimes these "like farmed" pages are even sold in an online black market.)

Yet, people fall for it. Why? I have to place some blame on the very concept of prayer. Our culture accepts and respects the superstition of prayer as a meaningful act, even though it doesn't affect the real world in a verifiable way. (Any claimed effects of prayer are easily explained by confirmation bias and placebo effects.) If we indulge the superstition of prayer, we indulge the kind of magical thinking that allows people to believe that typing "amen" will make a difference in the world.

If you want to help sick people without indulging superstition, donate to a secular relief organization like "Doctors Without Borders" or a humanist charity like "Foundation Beyond Belief."

I've reported the page "Stories That Touch" to Facebook as a scam, and I encourage you to do the same. You can do it easily by visiting the page and clicking "More."

You can learn more about "like farming" here:

http://prinyourpajamas.com/facebook-like-farming/

You can learn why prayer doesn't work here:

http://whywontgodhealamputees.com/god5.htm

You can donate to Doctors Without Borders here:

https://donate.doctorswithoutborders.org/

You can donate to the Foundation Beyond Belief here;

https://foundationbeyondbelief.org/