Are flirty text messages sent to victims part of a sex trafficking operation? Fact Check

Messages claim a prolific text messaging scheme (that we’ve discussed before) whereby the recipient received a SMS message from a “wrong number” is actually related to sex trafficking.

FALSE

The rumours, which appear to have been started on video-sharing app TikTok, claim that flirty or suggestive text messages received by a recipient that appear to have been sent to a wrong number (like the one below) are actually part of a sex trafficking ring.

The rumours also claim that replying to these suspicious text messages will provide your exact location to sex traffickers. See an example of these claims on TikTok below.

@austrochlo please share and b00$t this video. #foryoupage #foryou #fyp #4u #sa #trafficking #traffickingawareness #feminism #women ♬ original sound – chloe💛🖤

The claims that these text messages are related to sex trafficking are false.

However, as we’ve previously discussed in an earlier article, the suspicious text messages themselves are real. They’re part of a scheme designed to lure men to adult dating websites. The general premise of the scheme is to send flirty or suggestive text messages that appear to have been sent to the wrong number and then to strike up an equally flirty conversation when the recipient responds. The end game in all cases we’ve seen is to lure the men to adult content websites with the promise of seeing sexually explicit photos.

Perhaps one of the most obvious indications that this doesn’t have anything to do with sex trafficking is that, as we’ve previously explained in our article about these text messages, is that they’re specifically crafted to lure men. Of course while this isn’t intended to deny a reality that men have never been victimised by the sex trafficking industry, is seems highly doubtful that a sophisticated sex trafficking operation would be designed to target specifically men.

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Of course the rumours that claim this is actually a sex trafficking operation offer no evidence or reason to back-up their claims.

They also parrot a common misconception that simply replying to a text message will provide someone your exact location. This just isn’t true. While there are certain technologies available to authorities and phone companies that can allow a person to be tracked by triangulating their signal from nearby phone masts, this isn’t something likely available to criminals, much less something that can be done “on the fly” whenever you respond to a text message.

There is no evidence that sex trafficking rings are using untargeted SMS messages sent en mass to lure victims, nor is there any reason why this would be effective. While many types of criminals do send such scam messages, sex traffickers are not among then.

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This isn’t the first time the Internet has conflated suspicious text messages with the common cyber-bogeyman of sex trafficking. In 2018 unsolicited text messages claiming “someone complimented you” were – if online circles were to be believed – part of a sophisticated sex trafficking ring. In reality it was just a slightly-spammy social media app sending out invitations when the recipient’s friend let the app connect with their phone contacts.

With all that said, the advice usually offered by these “sex trafficking” claims about not responding to suspicious text messages is sound. Responding to messages may not give crooks your exact location, but it does confirm your number is both real and monitored, and that is often enough to elicit a surge of more scammy or spam text messages to your inbox.

However this doesn’t justify spreading alarmist and plain false information about sex trafficking. There are plenty of great resources offering accurate information about these serious concerns if your aim is to raise awareness. Spreading misinformation like this only serves to cloud a very serious issue. We rank this claim as false.