Sports column: Beware of spam links to “free” football livestreams
Published 8:00 am Sunday, November 20, 2022
- An example of a graphic for a fake livestream link that often appears on social media. A number of scam sites have flooded social media in the past couple of years, purporting to take users to broadcasts of sporting events but instead asking them for credit card or personal information.
There is a plague spreading across the social media landscape. A pox upon our houses that is cluttering comments sections all over this great land.
No, not Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter and its unfolding implosion.
I’m talking about the scourge of spam links to fake streaming websites for high school sporting events.
If you’re active at all on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube, you’ve probably seen them. They’re normally found in the comments section of sports stories posted by media outlets, and might even look like they come from normal people.
The links claim to take you to a free livestream of whatever game the story is about, but in reality will melt down your computer faster than an ice cube on a summer sidewalk in Mississippi.
The links are a phishing scam that will ask you to sign up for livestreams that do…
