No...Seriously

A DAMASCUS TILE PANEL OTTOMAN SYRIA, CIRCA 1560

Friday Night Pub Quiz: What region was chosen as Britain's first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty?

The Quantock Hills in Somerset, chosen in 1956.

The Chauvet cave, France, the art of prehistory.

In 1994, three friends discovered in the south of France a cave with magnificent cave paintings, more than 30,000 years old.

Under the ground of the Ardèche region, an invaluable treasure is hidden for its antiquity, its conservation and the pictorial quality of the representations; one of the oldest and most splendid examples of Arieñaciense parietal art, dating approx. between 40,000 and 30,000 B.C.

Özünde buzul gizleyen bir kar tanesiyim, fark et beni...

The whole thread is fascinating, and is based on nothing more than a single photo, with most of the stuff she relies on to make the ID not even being in focus, let along in the foreground. Stuff you might never think about, like the angle between two building or the exact color of the storage unit doors. 

Because you might think to yourself, “What is the harm of sharing a photo that shows the color of my storage unit doors??” But combined with your name and the fact that you live in, say, Eastern Tennessee, that might be all someone needs to narrow it down.

You should really read the whole thing, but to quote something she says at the end:

“The things that give you away are things that are not the focus of the shot. It’s details in the background, the foreground. Shadows, changes in coloration where they’re not expected. …  I have geolocated people from pictures of cranes in the background of images, and use local construction permits to figure out where they are. I have used the shape of downspout guards and styles of siding to identify neighborhoods.”

And as she reminds us: You should always assume that bad actors are capable of doing this, too. 

I could say that I’m a 15 year old trans indigenous girl named Jess who lives in the inner suburbs of Sydney, and NOT A SINGLE word of that is remotely true, but how do you know??? How do you know whether I’m telling the truth or not??

But you might read it and think “oh she’s a minor like me; she’s Safe to talk to” or “she’s trans too she understands me on a personal level” or “I know her; her name is Jess” or “she’s indigenous, I can take her stances on indigenous topics as Truth” – but I’m not any of those things. And if I wrote all that and stated that they were true and you believed me then you would be in an inherently vulnerable position, because you would be believing I’m your age or have the same gender experiences as you or that I’m of the same heritage, and meanwhile I could be a predator who’s specifically trying to target children by making myself out to be both a minor and two different types of minority.

And yeah, people can lie all the time if they want to; there’s nothing to stop me right now from announcing that I’m actually American, or I’m actually 52, or I’m actually a natural redhead, or I’m actually [insert something that I am not]. But if its becoming commonplace to lay all your “basic” information on the table from the outset then youre gonna start taking that at face value. Youre gonna believe peoples bios. You’re gonna check someone’s carrd out and go “oh they’re a fourteen year old boy from wisconsin” and every interaction you have with them from then on is going to be through a lens of “theyre a fourteen year old boy from Wisconsin,” and they might not be.

For the love of GOD please stop sharing your personal details online. You dont need to tell people your actual name. You dont need to share selfies. Godding fuck dont announce to the whole world that you live in a certain specific area and that you’ve just been kicked out of home. There are people who will take that information and use it against you.

And if you are ever, EVER going to meet up with an online friend in real life, here are some basic tips that you really absolutely 100% should do:

Do a zoom chat with them first. No, not selfies; selfies can be taken from anywhere. I could google “teenage girl,” screenshot it, and send it to you with the claim that its my face. I could steal someone’s Facebook photos and claim they’re mine. Its a lot harder for an adult to con you into thinking theyre a teenager if you insist on doing a zoom call or similar with them first.

If you have a facetime/zoom call/Skype/whatever scheduled, and they cancel it, but still want to meet up in person at the pre-arranged time, DO NOT GO. Straight up say “no, we’ll reschedule; how about we Skype at the time we were meant to meet in person instead.” DO NOT MEET UP WITH SOMEONE IF YOU HAVENT VIDEO-CHATTED WITH THEM. DO NOT. If they dont want to Skype with you or keep agreeing to and then dropping out, then thats a fucking huge warning sign.

If they video chat with you and you’re satisfied that they are who they say they are and youre happy to go ahead with the meet, then agree to meet up in the middle of the day in a crowded place. A shopping mall, a busy cafe, etc. Somewhere with lots of people around. Do NOT go somewhere else with them. Do NOT get in their car or go somewhere with fewer people or etc. Hate to break it to you, but it is NOT outside of the realm of possibility that the person you’re meeting is bait to get you somewhere isolated where someone else can grab you. This is a thing that has happened. Easiest way to avoid it? Don’t go places alone with your online friend until you know for sure they’re not dodgy.

Also: TELL SOMEONE WHERE YOU ARE GOING AND WHO YOU ARE GOING TO MEET. It doesn’t have to be a parent. Lord knows some of you kids don’t trust your parents, and I understand that. But tell SOMEONE. A friend, a sibling, a cousin; whatever. Tell them when you’re going, where you’re going, who you’re meeting, and what the other person’s online details are. If it turns out that theyre a normal human person who is just keen to meet their online friend, then great. But if they turn out to be some kind of creepy whackjob who kidnaps you or something, then at least there is someone out there who can give the police a start point about where you were and who you were meeting.

One person then immediately and intentionally began trying to trigger her in the comments hoping she’d post a video of her tic attack. Once she blocked this person they LITERALLY MADE A HATE ACCOUNT about her where they stated that they wanted her to be killed.