Opinion: You’re right to be scared by recent ‘catfishing’ killings. Use it to make these life changes

Editor’s Note: Kara Alaimo, an associate professor in the Lawrence Herbert School of Communication at Hofstra University, writes about issues affecting women and social media. Her book, “This Feed is On Fire: Why Social Media is Toxic for Women and Girls – And How We Can Reclaim It,” will be published by Alcove Press in 2024. The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own. View more opinion at CNN.

On Wednesday, Michelle Blandin, whose parents and sister were killed last week after her 15-year-old niece appears to have fallen victim to “catfishing,” spoke at a press conference and exhorted parents to make sure their kids are safe online.

Austin Lee Edwards, the 28-year-old former Virginia police officer and alleged killer, is suspected of “catfishing” Blandin’s teenage niece – which means he met the girl online and pretended to be someone other than who he was in order to form a romantic relationship with her. He is then believed to have killed Blandin’s parents Mark and Sharie Winek and her sister, Brooke Winek, before leaving Riverside, California with Blandin’s niece. After a neighor spotted a suspicious car and called the police, Edwards was ultimately stopped by and killed in a shootout with sheriff’s deputies. The girl is physically unharmed – and motherless.

“Parents, please know your child’s online activity, ask questions about what they’re doing and whom they are talking to,” Blandin said. “Anybody can say they’re someone else and you could be in this situation.”

It’s not just parents who should be worried about this problem. We all need to take this incident as the wakeup call it is about just how many of the people we meet online may not be who they claim to be.

“Catfishing” is increasing at an alarming rate, especially on online dating sites. One reason people are “catfished” is for money. Online predators try to form emotional connections with their targets and then ask for cash, claiming it’s so they can travel to visit them, or pay for an operation, for example. Then they disappear.

In 2021, Americans lost nearly 80% more money to romance scams than the year before, according to the Federal Trade Commission, which says it’s the biggest category of fraud that people in the United States fell victim to last year. That’s probably because people spent more time on mobile apps than ever before last year, at least partly due to the pandemic.

Other times, catfishers gain the trust of women and then offer to help them invest their money. Sometimes they set up elaborate websites where these women think they’re watching their crypto currency grow – but really their money has been stolen by these scammers.

But the grisly Riverside killings show that catfishers don’t just prey on people’s finances. They can also put our lives in danger.

I’ve been interviewing women about their experiences with social media for my forthcoming book. Women have repeatedly told me they’ve stopped using online dating sites lately because many of the “men” they’re being matched with online don’t appear to be real.

“After a while you start picking them up, because they are sort of generic handsome guys and you know this is a stolen picture,” one woman told me. But this woman works at a senior level in international diplomacy. We can’t expect a 15-year-old girl to necessarily be able to pick up on cues that someone she’s communicating with online isn’t who he claims to be.

What’s more, even highly educated, worldly women who I’ve interviewed have told me they initially believed catfishers when they lied about their identities. Some only wised up to these scammers after the first time they realized the person they were communicating with was lying about his identity — after he asked for money or they talked on the phone and she realized his accent wasn’t from the country he was claiming to be from, for example.

So it’s not just parents who should be scared. Of course, this is a chilling reminder that we need to educate our kids about the risk of these scams. We need to teach our children how to protect themselves online, monitor their online activities closely and help them navigate potentially dangerous situations. Children are also better off meeting new people offline – at school or through extracurricular activities. But, as adults, we also need to be hyper-vigilant that people may not be who they say they are online.

If you meet someone online, insist on talking with video so you can see whether they look like who they purport to be. If you decide to meet up in person, do so in a public place, tell people where you’re going in advance and keep your guard up for a long time – until you’ve met the person’s family, friends and/or colleagues, can confirm their identity with certainty and have reliable evidence they can be trusted.

This is also a stark reminder that, as I’ve said before, online dating sites and other social networks that match people up with the intention of real-world encounters should be verifying the identities of their users and conducting background checks on them.

The benefit of online dating and other social media sites is that they expand the number of so-called fish in the sea, widening our pool of potential friends and mates. But those who use these sites should also know that “catfishing” has become an astonishingly widespread practice. Our lives can depend on not falling victim to these scams.