It is high time that we strongly and globally ramp up people's protection against scams and I really see only 3 options:

1) The States impose legal obligations on public and private organizations to invest a lot more into the security and safety of their infrastructures and products. 2) State create huge funds to reimburse people and companies that get scammed. 3) The states massively invest in spreading digital literacy amoung populations of any age and social status.

My preference goes to number 3, with some number 1. As a volunteering level 1-2 IT support, I regularly see people of all ages and venues who simply have no clue at all about how any computer works, what the Internet and the web are, where services/tools/software like emails, browsers, search engines, social platforms, message applications, text messages, and AI stand with regards to each others in the glorious maelstrom that we commonly know as « online », whose limits most people don't know how do define.

I have people come to me and say they can't find anymore a message on their smartphone that was sent by a friend, but have no idea whether it was a text message, an e-mail, a whatsapp et a messenger message, because they only saw the notification, but failed to tap on it immediately and they don't know either how to draw down the notification menu from the top of their smartphone screen. I have others that cannot fathom how a scammer could send them a message passing as someone they know.

I have heard people get angry at banks or phone companies because they got scommed by people passing as their bank or phone company, accusing them for allowing the scam to happen. They don't even seem to understand that this whole « online » thing isn't just one big organism, nor even a more or less well organised or coordinated whole, but just a messy capitalist neoliberal bazar with no one particularly in charge.

We absolutely need to have state-wide online and in person computer and digital literacy programs, addressed to people at various ages and educational stages to teach them the basics of:

1) what is a general-purpose computer (hardware, software) 2) what is the Internet and its various protocoles (including of course the Web and emails) 3) how #GAFAM & #BATX are neither the Internet, nor the web, but private capitalistic and neliberal exploitation of them and why #FLOSS is the future.

Otherwise, we'll be completely drown in #digital #capitalism and #neoliberalism ! https://www.theguardian.com/money/2026/sep/06/student-loan-scam-maintenance-funds-dupe-students