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In March 2022, screenshots supposedly showing text messages from a redheaded woman were circulated on social media attached to the claim that these messages were related to a sex trafficking ring. Posts on social media also warned that if people responded to these messages the sender would be able to track their location. Here's a text from one post that has racked up more than 30,000 shares: A viral TikTok video about a slightly different version of this rumor received more than 2.7 million views on TikTok. Similar versions of this rumor featuring photographs of different women have been circulating for years. You can see some visual examples of the various versions of this rumor at the top of this article. While people were truly receiving text messages purporting to be from a redheaded woman who dialed the wrong number, and while recipients truly are best off ignoring, blocking, and deleting these messages, there's no evidence that these messages are connected to a sex trafficking ring, nor is there any indication that a person's location will be tracked if they engage with this message. These text messages are just the latest iteration in a series of fear-mongering rumors about sex trafficking that have been circulating on social media for years. While sex trafficking is certainly a real world problem, many of the rumors that get passed around social media about the various tactics sex traffickers are supposedly using to find victims are unfounded. We've previously encountered false rumors about sex traffickers leaving chemically tainted roses on cars, putting zip-ties on mailboxes to mark the location of victims, and posing as door-to-door booksellers. Ron Pierce, president of the IT company Trinity Solutions, told the North Carolina CBS news affiliate WFMY: While there's no evidence that the person(s) sending these text messages are linked to a sex trafficking ring, they are likely engaged in another nefarious activity: theft. The goal of many spam text messages is to get a person to divulge personal information, such as a credit card number, birth date, or personal photos, or to click on links containing malware that can steal this information. In the case above, it appears that the scammer was using flirty text messages (and eventually nude photos) in order to get people to click on a link to an adult website that was likely infested with malware. While these text messages are not linked to sex-trafficking, and receiving one will not allow anyone to track your location, if you get one of these text messages, your best option is to ignore, delete, and mark the number as spam. It's also worth mentioning that while the people on social media warning others about a new sex trafficking scheme are probably doing so with good intentions, these warnings can distract from real sex-trafficking issues and divert resources from people who truly need help. In 2020, after a conspiracy theory that the furniture store Wayfair was trafficking children in overpriced cabinets went viral, the Polaris Project, a nonprofit nongovernmental organization working to combat sex trafficking, published an article explaining how these conspiratorial rumors can impact survivors and victims:
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