August 2026
Raffile and Erin West had just come back from tracking a scam network in Nigeria, and were asked what responsibility the US platforms carry. He said the criminals themselves named Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp as the platforms that enable the most crime, and described the reused profile pictures and scripted messages that make the operation machine-readable. His argument is that the repetition is itself the evidence.
Transcript
Yeah, I think that was the biggest thing that surprised me was the fact that these criminals said, in response to our question, how can we reduce this crime? The resounding answer was more arrests. They don't know anybody who's been arrested for doing this sort of crime. And as part of that, there's no deterrence. So they think they can keep getting away with it. And the fact that, as Aaron mentioned, the two of us in the span of a week can prepare to go to Nigeria and, you know, track down our scammer and nine others. You know, so can any law enforcement agency. So that's a challenge. Let's do it.
So that's why I wanted to ask about the trip. And then the main other thing I just wanted to ask about before we wrap up is that there's another component here, like another series of entities, and that is, of course, the U.S. platforms, right? There's Meta with Instagram, with WhatsApp, potentially iMessage, Apple as well. Although I think it seems like predominantly is or a lot of it is happening on meta platforms, right? Paul, what do you think about the responsibility of those platforms when it comes to either policing this sort of activity or assisting law enforcement or providing features that could mitigate the sort of issue? Like, what do you think the U.S. platform's responsibility is here?
Yeah, we asked these criminals what platforms enable you to commit the most crimes. And the first three answers that we heard across the board, Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp, they're all owned by Meta. In an honorary mention, fourth place, we heard TikTok quite a lot as well. So from the social platforms, they can do so much to prevent this. We're seeing these criminals use the same profile pictures, the same catfish identity, the same scripted messages, the same behavior of adding a whole bunch of teenagers and then sending them the same messages. This is a scaled abuse, and scaled abuse is detectable. And if it's detectable, it's preventable. So the onus is on them to do something about this.
Yeah. Erin, what do you think about that? About U.S. platforms' responsibility?
I've said it for a long time with the pig butchering scandal. But what I will also say is there is no question that American businesses could do a lot to keep teenagers more safe. And the fact is, the gravity of what's happening mandates that they need to do this. We have boys killing themselves over interactions that are happening exclusively on meta platforms. And just like Paul said, there are so many indicators that could be tracked and easily identified that it's reprehensible that they are not putting the time, effort, resources into keeping kids safer, not to mention the number of adults that are also victims of this crime.
Yeah, I mean, you will read national media reports or local media reports, or you'll just see stuff on Facebook as well. Or, you know, I just sometimes scroll through the sextortion subreddit and just every single day, if not every single hour, it is some kid saying, Hey, I'm getting sex storted now. What the hell do I do? And they're clearly freaking out and they're clearly really, really not having a good time. I can't imagine being in that situation as a young person. Well,