Who can you trust?

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wowisforstuds1238
wowisforstuds1238 Posts: 77 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I have been on this website now a little over 2 weeks, but I have already had some friends I have added, link malicious or unsecure websites masked as fitness info. Who can you trust when the people you think are real are actually bots? Any information regarding if this has happened to you would be greatly appreciated!
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  • wowisforstuds1238
    wowisforstuds1238 Posts: 77 Member
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    Yeah I’m new and I guess I put too much faith in people when looking for support and motivation. But it does happen to you guys as well?
  • sijomial
    sijomial Posts: 19,811 Member
    edited March 2021
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    It's been happening a lot recently - see this thread for more info and also for reporting them.
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10823922/help-inappropriate-friend-requests-pics/p1
    (Just add their profile name or link to the profile - a hardworking moderator is compiling them for deletion.

    I'd suggest vetting requests using the browser verion rather than phone app, if you spot a disparity between the gender given and the often all too obvious gender displayed (over-displayed!?) in the profile picture and a blank profile then there's a high chance is an automated Russian porn bot that has hijacked a dormant profile.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    wowisforstuds1238 wrote: »
    Yeah I’m new and I guess I put too much faith in people when looking for support and motivation. But it does happen to you guys as well?

    I've been on here since the fall of 2012...I pretty much ignored any requests early on because I wasn't experienced enough here to actually "know" anyone and I didn't particularly get any motivation from just random someone I have no experience with...so I couldn't really say. For the most part, I would be the one to send FRs to individuals on the forum that I would see over time have some things in common with myself...ie their exercise habits and preferences and training...ways of eating, etc.

    I didn't just want to have a big list of "friends" with whom I had nothing in common...For example, Sally who does keto and is overly exuberant about her way of eating and spends most of her exercise time droning away on the elliptical wasn't really going to do much for me in the motivation department...nothing in common. However, Scott who really enjoys cooking and making delicious healthy meals and is into triathlons and cycling...or Debbie who's into hiking and rock climbing...I can be friends with those guys.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,969 Member
    edited March 2021
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    **Edit, I see sijomial already posted the link to the thread you can use for reporting above. Cross-post!!


    **Edit again, I have a Friend tip: When you want to be a "friend" with someone, and you send them a friend request make sure to write a small explanation of why you are asking for the friend thing. If I get a friend request with no explanation, I don't even look at the person's profile it I just delete the friend request.

    That might weed out most if not all of the bot friend requests.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,598 Member
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    cwolfman13 wrote: »
    wowisforstuds1238 wrote: »
    Yeah I’m new and I guess I put too much faith in people when looking for support and motivation. But it does happen to you guys as well?

    I've been on here since the fall of 2012...I pretty much ignored any requests early on because I wasn't experienced enough here to actually "know" anyone and I didn't particularly get any motivation from just random someone I have no experience with...so I couldn't really say. For the most part, I would be the one to send FRs to individuals on the forum that I would see over time have some things in common with myself...ie their exercise habits and preferences and training...ways of eating, etc.

    I didn't just want to have a big list of "friends" with whom I had nothing in common...For example, Sally who does keto and is overly exuberant about her way of eating and spends most of her exercise time droning away on the elliptical wasn't really going to do much for me in the motivation department...nothing in common. However, Scott who really enjoys cooking and making delicious healthy meals and is into triathlons and cycling...or Debbie who's into hiking and rock climbing...I can be friends with those guys.

    Is Scott single?

    :)

    I don't do friends (sorry anyone who's ever tried) but I would stick to people you see in the forums.

    That and this is the internet.

    You can't trust anyone! :)
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,874 Member
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    cmriverside wrote: »
    **Edit, I see sijomial already posted the link to the thread you can use for reporting above. Cross-post!!


    **Edit again, I have a Friend tip: When you want to be a "friend" with someone, and you send them a friend request make sure to write a small explanation of why you are asking for the friend thing. If I get a friend request with no explanation, I don't even look at the person's profile it I just delete the friend request.

    That might weed out most if not all of the bot friend requests.

    This ^^^. I do do a whole lot with the friend request stuff these days, but back in the way back when, if I received a request that didn't have some kind of explanation of why they would want to be friends with me, it was just an automatic delete request.
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,969 Member
    edited March 2021
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    kshama2001 wrote: »
    wowisforstuds1238 wrote: »
    Yeah I’m new and I guess I put too much faith in people when looking for support and motivation. But it does happen to you guys as well?

    I prefer the interactions I have on the forums.

    I didn't find my feed terribly motivating and now only look at it accidentally. Don't know if this is still a thing, but I used to get posts in my feeds that "X is now friends with Y" - a big waste of space as far as I'm concerned. I have no interest in looking at other people's diaries. I also used to have two undereaters that got a lot of feedback in their threads which I also didn't want to see. For whatever reason I couldn't just unfriend them, lol.

    Can't you block people in the feed now? There's a little X box that hides them, I think.


    Dunno, I only go there accidentally too.

    ..and, yeah - those autopost things are super annoying. People can disable them, I don't know why they don't.

    I don't care about how many days you've logged in or what your exercise was. ("You" in the general way - I totes care how many days you have kshama.)


    Maybe this is one reason I have few friends...is that something people want to know? I don't get that.
  • wowisforstuds1238
    wowisforstuds1238 Posts: 77 Member
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    I appreciate the advice. Thanks. I’ll be more careful in the future.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 32,190 Member
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    Y'know, I'm kind of on the other side of this. I look at profiles (on the web version of MFP) before I accept a FR, and if it doesn't seem suspect, I accept it (though I do have some medium-strict criteria). In borderline cases, I might do a search on the ID in the Community forums. I also look at the profile after I accept, and delete the friendship if I see new things I don't like. Other than that, not being very oriented to that side of MFP, I pretty much ignore things unless I get inappropriate PMs or something (seems like this might be a more common for women than men, not sure).

    There's not much an MFP "friend" can do to harm me, unless I buy into a cat-phishing attempt or something. (I don't reveal a lot of personal info on my profile, and not much info I'd consider cat-phishing-useful on the forum.)
  • cmriverside
    cmriverside Posts: 33,969 Member
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    @psychod787 does have the most fun feed posts.
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,403 Member
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    sijomial wrote: »
    It's been happening a lot recently - see this thread for more info and also for reporting them.
    https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10823922/help-inappropriate-friend-requests-pics/p1
    (Just add their profile name or link to the profile - a hardworking moderator is compiling them for deletion.

    I'd suggest vetting requests using the browser verion rather than phone app, if you spot a disparity between the gender given and the often all too obvious gender displayed (over-displayed!?) in the profile picture and a blank profile then there's a high chance is an automated Russian porn bot that has hijacked a dormant profile.

    Nearly sounds like you're describing me :D I don't do friends though, thus it doesn't matter
  • SuzySunshine99
    SuzySunshine99 Posts: 2,984 Member
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  • claireychn074
    claireychn074 Posts: 1,343 Member
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    cmriverside wrote: »
    @psychod787 does have the most fun feed posts.

    Now I’m curious but their account is private and I don’t usually bother with friends! 🤣 I want to see the exercises!

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