Newsletter: Your phone number might be the key to this scam

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Hello fellow web crawlers! Andrew here. Welcome to today’s edition of web_crawlr. 

Our top stories today are about: A woman warning others about a new scam that could impact you if you have a phone plan with major carriers, an investor who boasted about not paying taxes getting roasted over his private firefighter plea, a look into Vogue Pakistan’s Instagram account, and why Trump fans aren’t buying Zuckerberg’s new “free speech” push. 

After that, our Senior Politics and Technology Editor David has a new “Deplatformed” column for you. 

See you tomorrow! 

— A.W. 

Today in Internet Culture

SCAMS
‘My neighbor is out $4,000’: Woman shares warning on new SIM card scam—especially if you have Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T

Your phone number may be the key to your bank account as many scammers are using a new technique called SIM hacking.

➤READ MORE

DYSTOPIA
‘Capitalist dystopia’: L.A. investor who boasted about not paying taxes savaged over private firefighter plea

An investor in Los Angeles, California who previously called for cutting property taxes is being mocked after crowdsourcing for private firefighting companies to come save his house.

➤READ MORE

POP CULTURE
Vogue’s Instagram has 1 million followers and posts Spotify ads, exclusive interviews. There’s just one problem

At first glance, Vogue Pakistan’s Instagram account looks legitimate… 

➤READ MORE

TECH
‘Never forgive and never go back’: Trump fans aren’t buying Zuckerberg’s new ‘free speech’ push

Right-wingers on Truth Social are not impressed with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s shake-ups at Facebook, which include replacing third-party fact-checking with community responses and adding UFC CEO and Trump ally Dana White to Meta’s board.

➤READ MORE

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By David Covucci
Politics & Technology Editor

QAnon cheers Los Angeles fire, except for James Woods

Deplatformed is a weekly column that looks into the nether reaches of the internet—outside the big few that everyone already covers—to tell you the political discourse online. It runs on Thursdays in the Daily Dot’s web_crawlr newsletter. If you want to get this column a day before we publish it, subscribe to web_crawlr, where you’ll get the daily scoop of internet culture delivered straight to your inbox.

Crawling the Web

Here is what else is happening across the ‘net.

A general rule of thumb for someone’s character is seeing how they treat service workers.

This woman’s Amazon package got lost. Amazon then told her to go look for it.

If you’re ordering ingredients for a dinner this year, watch out! This Walmart shopper ordered 0.25 jalapeños and ended up unpacking five whole pounds of them.

When you pay for something, you expect to get what you asked for. But one customer caught this fast food chain using an old trick to give customers less product.

Home Depot worker and TikTok creator Original_spiritual_hoochie recently struck a chord with retail workers everywhere in a viral rant that garnered 85,000 views and over 1,200 comments.

From the Daily Dot archive: Social media companies destroyed the history of QAnon.

Question of the Day

Everyone’s got opinions, and we want to know yours. Just click a button below to answer the question, and tomorrow we will let you know how fellow web crawlers like you answered. 

DO YOU SHOP AT ULTA? 

To answer questions like this in the future, sign up for web_crawlr here.

Today’s Viral Video

Unlimited is a weird word for limited.