• Ech@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    It’s pretty fucked, honestly. They regularly posted up in the lunchroom at my school, recruiting students with promises of scholarships.

    We didn’t get text messages like this, but I’m not surprised to see it. I do wonder how they get the numbers though. Is it just data broker bullshit or is the school system selling out their own students’ information?

    • ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      My college definitely gave out student contact info to the ROTC/National Guard recruiters. I got more than one unsolicited text exactly like the one in the OP throughout college.

      • Ech@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        So stalking highschoolers via social media. That’s somehow worse. Yeesh.

        • strawberry@kbin.run
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          9 months ago

          I’d argue that its not as bad. socials are public, phone numbers are not. don’t mean to defend them, they shouldn’t be messaging minors in any capacity without explicit consent

          • Ech@lemm.ee
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            9 months ago

            Socials being “public” doesn’t mean every single thing about the person is publicized (though, I admit, it could be depending on the person). If this is Instagram, afaik there’s no “I go to X HS” bio-line option, so unless the user explicitly lists it themselves, that suggests recruiters are analyzing their posts to connect them to a school, and/or linking them to other users they already know. That is explicitly worse, imo.

            • strawberry@kbin.run
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              9 months ago

              I mean school could have given them a list

              idk there’s no point arguing what’s worse, they’re both bad and should not happen

              • Ech@lemm.ee
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                9 months ago

                For one, you literally started this argument. Second, schools giving them a list doesn’t make it better either.

                I will agree it’s all bad, though. The sheer impudence to do anything like this is just awful. “Hey child! I know you never asked for this discussion, but do you wanna fight and die for a military system that will use shady af data acquisition just to pose this shitty question to you? We can give you an education that should be affordable to anyone but absolutely isn’t. You’re probably poor right?”