I’m not going to comment on a lot of the stuff going on on twitter right now regarding manatreed & Dream, because there seems to be a fuck ton of misinformation and I don’t feel like spending 12 hours digging through all of it to figure out the truth.
What I do I want to say, from the perspective of someone who has a long history with online security & faking information is the following:
Screenshots of any kind of text/social media posts are trivially easy to fake. There are websites that will do it for you, but even just putting in minimal effort allows someone to fake one such that it is indistinguishable from a real one. Do not treat screenshots of text or social media posts as any kind of evidence on their own.
Ask: who is providing this information? Why are they providing it? Do they have a vested interest in lying to me? What do they hope to gain from this?
If the source of the information has actively hostile intents, then you need to be significantly more critical of the information provided. Assume that you are being lied to unless proof is provided otherwise.
Pause and consider information that is being stated as a fact. “This is clearly x’s account” “This is y’s phone number” etc etc.
How do they know that? Is that an actual fact that has been confirmed by any trusted source or is it just their word? What would prevent this party who has hostile intents from just saying “this is y’s phone number” or “this is clearly x’s account”?
Again, assume that if a party has hostile intent, they are going to lie to you.
Take a deep breath, remember your critical thinking skills, and remember to take a step back if you think you’re getting too wrapped up in the situation.
