Surprised to learn that Zimbabweans don't know their recent Whatsapp hijacking/hacking spree is linked directly to @facebook Ads.
Two routes are used widely on Facebook to harvest data, which is then sold on at very lucrative prices.
One is the "DM for price" data harvesting approach. By contacting the "advertiser" for price, your phone number/profile & linked details become a "profitable profile" of a Whatsapp user willing and ready to spend money on online purchases.
Even if they are genuinely selling something via Facebook, a majority of these advertisers also then make money on the side by selling your data to dodgy Chinese "marketing companies" who are very interested in African numbers at the moment.
The more direct ones are the "advertisers" in Zim who run ads that aren't connected to a Facebook page or profile.
Typically, they trick you into clicking on an enticing image of the product but, instead of bringing up the product, that clicks immediately opens your Whatsapp with a pre-populated message to the "seller".
Even if you then shut down the chat without sending any message & block the "advertiser", your phone number, name & other info linked to your Facebook & Whatsapp profile have already been automatically captured.
Almost all of the "advertisers" harvesting this data (name, phone number & other publicly available data from your Facebook profile) make quite good money from selling this data on.
The people who buy this data from these Zimbabwean "advertisers" & "sellers" always also sell this data on, packaged properly.
They don't care if a criminal gang or financial hackers buy the data from them: money is money.
Why Econet?
Because the hackers currently exploiting this in Zimbabwe have probably the most comprehensive list of active Whatsapp accounts harvested over the last 6-7yrs.
The majority of the numbers (~80%) are on @econetzimbabwe, making that network potentially the most lucrative to target at an infrastructure level.
Once their system is compromised (a very easy thing to do now with AI for any digitally half-literate criminal), the numbers start getting hijacked.
The "hackers" are mostly interested in seeing how you normally pay for the things you order online, on Whatsapp & on Facebook with your linked number.
A hijacked number/profile is scrapped for this info: linked credit/debit/bank cards, @EcoCashZW wallets etc.
It's today's equivalent of those 419 scams, where Nigerian online crooks were quite happy to send tens of thousands of messages a week/month, knowing that even if just 0.05% prove to be soft targets, it pays for their time and effort.
There's literally no other avenue being exploited to achieve the current spate of number hijackings apart from @facebook Ads & "sellers", @matigary@Mavhure@mimmitwit
You mean the Arab vote can decide an election in a Jewish state?
That doesn't sound like apartheid, you know?
Is Mehdi Hasan aware of this?
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Today I finally got some good news but that news somehow ended up being very sour. The murderers of my mzukuru have been identified and one of them in now in police custody. When I saw how young these kids are, I felt very sad for my country. Here are the photos of these thugs.
๐จ๐จ| JUST IN: LaLigaโs broadcast chief admitted that showing Arda Gรผlerโs controversial elbow on Peque was considered but REJECTED, with the production team focusing on the goal instead.
Sergio Carranza, who made the decision, previously worked at Real Madrid TV for 5ยฝ years.
April 2024: Alex de Waal tells a Harvard audience that Gaza is "the most intense famine that we have seen since records began."
October 2026: After none of his dire predictions came true, Alex de Waal declares that Gaza was, actually, "a very different type of famine."
Alex de Waal wrote the standard textbook on famine, runs the World Peace Foundation, and helped write starvation crimes into international law. When the media says "famine experts warn," this is who they mean.
In March 2024 he told Democracy Now that Gaza's children were already dying of hunger and disease, "likely in thousands already."
Asked in October 2026 if Gaza made him rethink his work, he said yes. Was he wrong? Of course not. The most intense famine since records began was simply "a very different type of famine," with "a very different demographic profile." Not one word about the thousands of children he said were already dying.
When Noam Dworman pressed him on the deaths in September, de Waal's answer was that the pattern "was something that was puzzling" and "we actually don't know how many have died."
He was certain enough in 2024 to tell the world they were already dying by the thousands. Now he isn't certain enough to say how many died at all.
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What actually happened:
The IPC's own Famine Review Committee, June 2024: the famine claims were "not plausible," and "the available evidence does not indicate that Famine is currently occurring."
https://t.co/f85dKsV6gV
After the October 2025 ceasefire, a UNICEF-led survey found 0.5 percent acute child malnutrition in Gaza, one of the lowest rates in the region.
https://t.co/BfWvPDIyiR
In 2016, he admitted in Boston Review that he had used "genocide" about Sudan "because it would grab headlines," and that "using the G-word was an error."
https://t.co/i7OgpB6WTk
Full interview: https://t.co/LTdcLAyUM4
Trending Story: Saudi Arabia has exe/cuted two Bangladeshi nationals, Nazrul Islam Abdul Basir and Siri Akhtar, following conviction of immoral sexual act inside a mosque in Mecca.
The โimmoral actโ was apparently a kiss on the forehead. They were newlyweds who decided to spend their honeymoon in Mecca.
According to reports in Bangladesh, Saudi authorities refused to consider they were a couple, and the forehead kiss was an expression of appreciation to Allah for a beautiful bride.
Their bodies have arrived in Bangladesh in two coffins for traditional burial rites.
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