A little backstory will help here. I was stalked in 2017-2018 by someone I knew on WordPress, I didn’t know it at the time. They stalked me for seven months and wreaked havoc on my life. It started the day my Twitter account was hacked and they made it look like two people I was close to were the ones stalking me. I was completely shocked and for some reason I contacted WordPress, and they told me that the DNS address was one of my close friends. I was even more confused now. Why would they stalk me?
Over the coming months, they hacked my phone and my computer, sending me text messages that didn’t make sense, and when I would be typing a post they would change the words. I started asking them questions like do you plan to hurt me, are you a mean person and similar questions. I received back jibberish but felt they didn’t want to hurt me. The texts were the worst, I had no idea what they were saying so I started asking who they were. I would get back an initial but it didn’t match anyone I knew.
It ended badly but one day they sent me an initial I recognized, and as soon as I said her name, I never heard from her again.
Fast forward all these years, and someone from the country she lived in is searching my archives, it’s not a bot just 20 or so posts a day but the hairs went up on my neck. This has been happening for a couple of weeks, and I’ve become paranoid. It doesn’t sound logical but the trauma from the experience came rushing back. I can’t tell who they are, only that they are on Facebook.
Have you experienced this type of unfounded fear before?
I have known for some time that the statistics provided by WordPress are not accurate and today it was cemented in my mind. When you publish a post it goes to each follower including those who subscribe to receive the post via email. The catch is that WordPress counts all of your posts as email which is the opposite of what the explanation of what the statistics are.
I have around 20-25 followers who receive my posts via email yet today I looked at a post from a few days ago and it showed 917 received my posts along with the number of email opens and unique opens, whatever that means. If you take the numbers at face value that means that out of close to 4K followers only 917 received the posts and that even fewer read the posts and fewer are commenting.
Commenting I understand, I don’t comment on every post I read but I have a hard time swallowing that the community has turned off receiving my posts. Maybe this is naive of me but when I see the level of long-time followers, new followers, comments, and the level of conversations I’m having with many people the number isn’t consistent.
This is no surprise, I have a long-time follower friend whose husband is a Statistical Engineer and he stated that the statistics on WordPress are inaccurate. This is not a rant, just an explanation for others who are perplexed with their statistics.
I’ve been blogging on WordPress for 24 years and have spent countless hours frustrated working with the Happiness Engineers to understand the issue I was having. Many, many years ago asking for help became futile and I gave up on contacting them. I did recently contact WordPress to let them know about the Bots that were enjoying my archives but as usual, I received no response. When I have a question now, I ask the community or go to Copilot for an explanation. Copilot has helped me understand what the statistics mean at a high level however the answers don’t apply to WordPress.
I hope this information helps others make sense out of what doesn’t make sense. :)
I’ve had a total of 921 Bot hits on my archive but what’s worrying is that 756 came from Facebook, what is Meta doing? This has happened three days in a row and the numbers are going up. I’ve never had this happen before and I can’t help but be alarmed. Of course, I’ve heard nothing back from WordPress and don’t expect to. I have to believe the Bot is targeting WordPress versus my blog.
I don’t know if this is a security risk or just searching for content to use to answer questions asked by their system. I was stalked several years ago by a blogger I knew, they hacked my system, terrorized and made it look like it was two bloggers I trusted. They had a mental illness that consisted of several personalities of which I did not know the names. They sent me texted and sent messages while I was typing. I came to believe they didn’t plan to hurt me and one day she used her real name. Once I confronted her the stalking stopped. I was a long seven months and it affected me greatly.
To say I’m concerned when these types of events happen is an understatement. I don’t know if this is the future of AI or something more sinister.
Can anyone enlighten me on what is happening and if I need to be alarmed. I would truly appreciate your feedback. The number of countries that have seen an increase in the views of the archives have gone and it’s from countries that never read through my archives. Today it’s up to six countries.
For the past two days a Bot aimed at WordPress has hit my archives with a fever pitch. It is probably looking for something I have not written about but it’s searching for something. Is it private information, stealing your content or a corporation looking for specific posts? Who knows but it concerns me.
Don’t be fooled when the views in your archives jump up by several thousand percent. They are not real numbers. You can’t see who they are because it doesn’t show up in the views, only what country has increased. Yesterday it was only in America but today it’s at least five countries. What makes it worse is I keep getting knocked off the Internet. How is this possible?
I contacted WordPress for whatever good that will do, remember you’re talking to a bot! It was telling me how to troubleshoot but in reality the functions don’t work. They show they are available but they won’t block an IP address like it shows, there is no way to block another blogger, it doesn’t work. If it did work I would not keep getting spam comments from the very bloggers who keep spamming me.
I’m tech savy to a point and when I don’t understand I ask my husband who is a career techie. He is the one who helped me understand that it was a Bot hitting WordPress. I don’t think most people can understand the Internet completely unless you’re Stephen Hawkins, but these actions are alarming. I feel like I’m being invaded. Is this the future of AI?
President Trump knew about COVID-19 in January 2020 but did not tell the public until March of that year. I heard the words myself during a phone interview with highly respected journalist Bob Woodward. Bob asked President Trump about the virus and he admitted it was deadly yet in public he said it was no worse the the seasonal flu and would go away quickly.
The most complete overview of the conversation with Bob Woodward and President Trump.
During the months that President Trump refused to listen to his top national advisors, the government was not ramping up its national supplies which is why hospitals found themselves without masks, proper protective gear, enough ventilators, and enough staff. I remember seeing hospitals overrun with patients and having to make the hard choice of who would get treatment or continue to get life support. This is not a weight that any individual employee needs to make, several committed suicide and washed out of their field and many caught COVID-19 themselves.
For conspiracy theorists and anti-vaxxers, you are misinformed and misguided, and no doubt you live lost in the same state of mind in the other areas of your life. People need to look at factual information and make up their own minds, conspiracy therorist are being controlled by others. That makes you a follower.
The total number of deaths from COVID-19 in the United States to date
We at USAFacts have endeavored to provide comprehensive, real-time pandemic data from all 50 states. However, the growing prevalence of at-home testing and the potential for individuals to contract the virus multiple times have skewed the government data we receive. These developments, plus the end of the public health emergency — and the required data reporting that came with it — have made it difficult for us to present a clear and reliable picture of COVID-19 in America.
We are committed to presenting thorough, accurate data, but the fact is that collecting that data on COVID-19 data is a significantly more challenging that it used to be, if the data is even out there at all. Therefore, we will no longer update the data on this dashboard. We appreciate your understanding and encourage you to remain vigilant in observing health protocols and guidelines. For more information about broader health outcomes, visit US Health Statistic and Data trends
Not all the statistics add up over the last seven days but you get the overall message. Close to 100,ooo people died in Texas alone.
I would like to see how conspiracy theorist explain the number of documented cases and deaths. Maybe the same way President Trump explains his very existence.
COVID-19 is on the rise in many countries, The United States has not been hit hard but the is no excuse for not taking precautions. Look at President Biden who recently contracted COVID-19, it can happen, and if we are not careful COVID-19 may return the the awful days of the pandemic. I pray not, it affected everyone, every business, and how we went about our daily life, people lost their jobs and businesses closed and life sucked all around.
I’m asking you to think about yourself, your family, and the community around you. Don’t read news about COVID-19 on social media, read news from respected news outlets, read briefings from the CDC and National Security within our government, and make an informed decision.
Our life and future depends on accurate information and making the right decisions which are not easy but ones you’ll be glad you made.
I have dealt with Kenneth reblogging my work for years through one of several blogs he operates. I don’t appreciate people building their blogs on other bloggers’ content. Yes, he gives credit but that is not the point. He reblogs non-related content to his site as filler. I’m no one’s filler, if you find a post moving, I have no issue with reblogging. I reblog myself but not as filler, it’s only posts that inspire me or hit me in a way that I want to share with the community. Now, I ask if I can reblog even if they freely allow it.
Today he reblogged a post I wrote about buying myself a birthday gift and I asked him to remove it and not reblog my work again. That has not been done and WordPress doesn’t give you the option to approve or not. once reblogged it’s gone. This type of blogger is degrading our content and is a coward because they can’t write their own posts. A serious blogger has patience and doesn’t need filler to up their numbers. I have no tolerance for this tactic and you should not tolerate yourself.
I encourage you to put your foot down and if needed call them out for the unethical tactic.
The blogosphere has changed dramatically since I started in 2005, in many ways for the better, of course, there’s always the other side, the haters who love to rant away about who knows what and the ones who use blogs as a marketplace to sell their goods and it’s rampant with scammers. The way I protect myself is by putting all comments in moderation and choosing 100 days to keep them in moderation.
WordPress has a section that states it will block certain blogs, but it doesn’t work. There is no blocking people from visiting or commenting on your blog. There are some settings you can pick from, I chose to have people signed into WordPress, does this work, I’m not sure but it appears to. If a comment comes in and it’s spam I mark it as such, eventually it may get recognized as spam when it comes in. I check spam every day or so because good comments get sent to spam as well. I delete all spam permanently, that doesn’t really make a difference that I can see but it’s deleted anyway.
Only open a link in a comment if you have conversed with the person and feel a high level of confidence in the person.
We are on the internet, the vast space where everything published is there forever, once posted there’s no going back. That is why you don’t see a photo of me in my Gravatar. Any image posted can be manipulated and used in the most violating way you can imagine. I’m even more cognizant after having all of my personal information released in a data breach in January of this year. The information is on the dark web, whatever that is and I don’t want to know and it’s there waiting for people to take and try to steal my identity. It’s frightening and I have to look over my shoulder for the rest of my life.
You can find anyone’s email very easily but it takes more savvy to find all the pieces of your life to do harm, and there are many ways to harm. Don’t obsess, it will only drive you down the rabbit hole, be vigilant and ask yourself, “Do I want to publish this?” I don’t go about life worried about anything, including my identity, it’s on me to be vigilant and work with the bank and any creditor in a hypervigilant way with their tools, keep an eye on my credit report, and double-check all my charges. I set my bank and credit card to $50, any charge over that sends me an email that a purchase was made. I’m not the breadwinner so I know exactly what charges are made. My husband has his own way of protecting our information.
Don’t let others control your life and cause you great frustration and fear. You control your own life to a point, what people do with your information is on them but you have to stay on top of it. It takes very little time after you set up systems to protect you.
Don’t engage with scammers, that’s a game to them. Don’t feed it, if you do you’re shooting yourself in the foot. Breathe, and let it go. When they get no response they will leave alone unless they are a stalker. In that case, it’s the same, don’t engage, and eventually the game will end. I’ve been stalked three times and I see my role in making the situation worse. I can only say that by looking back, in the moment our emotions get the best of us. that’s what we have control over. Be smart!
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