Australian Government to apply Chinese 'Weeding the Grass' approach to combat scam messages

It is well known that clicking on links in scam messages opens up people to identity theft and can actually lead to multi-billion dollar losses and data breaches for multinational companies, and personal financial destruction for individuals. Yet the reason that stupid people keep clicking the links in scam messages remains a mystery. 

Advertising campaigns, the Australian education system and general levels of intelligence are not evidently enough to stop people trying to claim 3022 Coles points worth $15.11 in grocery products from Coles. After almost 20 years of internet usage in society, people seem unable to spot the scam in a message with bad grandma and a link ending in .ru/free$Aussiepoints.

Therefore, the Australian Government will shortly begin a new initiative to combat Australians clicking on links in scam text messages. Called ‘Weeding the Grass’ the initiative is based on a Chinese government program with the same name.

The Australian Government will commence sending its own scam messages to flush out the people in society who keep clicking on these links. Just as in China the ‘Weeding the Grass’ program involves the government sending public servants out to locate people clicking the links and chop their hands off. 

Results in China have shown a 93% reduction in links being clicked and sent. Not clicking the links has evidently reduced the business model of the scammers and they have turned their sights elsewhere. The remaining 7% of people who use their nose or feet to keep clicking the links are proving doubly hard to shift.

Before resorting to chopping people's hands off the Australian Government had flagged retaining consultants from the smoking, alchohol and gambling industries, or even just the Google Ads people. Discussions with these industries might find what is so intoxicatingly enticing about these scam messages. The idea is that businesses legally selling addictive products might have ideas in their top-secret marketing or psychological toolkits to increase, or decrease, the attractiveness of spam messages to the everyday person. Let the spam rip through, but condition people to just ignore it.

Image credit: Pexels 'weeding the grass' search