Do a search on Twitter for “RT and I’ll send you $” and you can find hundreds of accounts offering free money, no contest, no questions asked. Do a little more research and you can find that most of these accounts are lying.
It’s unsurprising that many of these accounts are accounts that have been made specifically for the purpose of gaining retweets and followers by saying they are having random giveaways. Tweets from these accounts are then deleted before the name of the account is changed and the account and all of its followers are bought by someone and used for whatever they want.
Aside from being a little embarrassing, it doesn’t really seem like these bogus retweet accounts are doing any harm. They aren’t violating any of Twitter’s user guidelines and they aren’t asking for anything from the participants.
The problem lies in accounts that are more than just “RT for $100!” and that have actual people behind them. These people tweet about their lives and opinions, and also happen to have a lot of extra money lying around that maybe they’ll CashApp you if you ask enough and garner enough pity from them.
In order to get the attention of these accounts, people tweet them with the status of their personal finances. These stories are often incredibly personal, sometimes including traumatic events or situations.
People publically send their personal situations in order to maybe get some money sent to them, but all too often, these accounts that claim to be giving away money, are not. Asking for this from someone is incredibly unethical. Even more so if they aren’t giving people the money.
There are some people who are giving away the money from their random giveaways on Twitter. One of these is Bill Pulte, who started the #TwitterPhilanthropy movement over the summer. Pulte is the grandson of the founder of the real estate empire the PulteGroup.
Pulte says that the giveaway is not for any kind of attention, but instead so that he can spread goodwill through social media.
“It’s about time we use social media for good,” Pulte told FOX Business in September. “I’m a wealthy individual who understands technology better than somebody in an older generation, and I thought, ‘Why aren’t we bringing philanthropy online?’”
Almost everyday Pulte tweets, encouraging his followers to interact with him and ask for money. In response, people send in their personal stories about how they need money, with a link to a GoFundMe or their PayPal. Pulte quote tweets them and says that he has just sent them some amount of money, but also exposing these people’s problems to two million followers.
This is honestly a disgusting practice. Why should Americans be forced to ask some random guy on Twitter for help with their medical bills? They should not have to let these stories be public knowledge for everyone to partake in if they want to be able to afford things.
This kind of behavior online is predatory. Even if the person is giving someone money.
People shouldn’t have to put their private lives on blast so that they can survive. This is just further proof that we need reforms that will keep people from having to do this.
Photo: Tate Walden/ The Johnsonian
