OHIO — The FBI is looking into a series of offensive and racist text messages sent to individuals around the country.
One of the people who received those messages is Ian Smith, who said he received it while doing his homework in his school’s computer lab.
“It’s just like, oh this is a joke but y'all, y'all are comfortable enough to say this joke,” said Smith. “That’s a problem. That's the disturbing part.”
In a screenshot Smith shared with News 5, the message told Smith that he had been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation and to be ready at 12 a.m. on Nov. 13 sharp with his belongings.
The message further told Smith that executive slaves will come get him in a brown van and for him to be prepared to be searched down once he has entered the plantation.
“It didn’t really strike me as disturbing until I constantly kept looking at it. I'm like, 'Oh okay. Am I the only one that got this or like, is this real?'” Smith asked.
Questions Larezia Wilson said she found herself asking, too, when she received a similar message to her phone.
“I originally thought that it was real. I did start to feel a little scared thinking, 'Am I going have to go to a plantation or is this a joke?'” Wilson asked.
Eventually, Wilson said she realized it was a joke.
“But you know, it's not funny even still to this day. Like why are people playing during, you know, such a time as this?” Wilson asked.
In this instance of a more targeted attack, Cybersecurity Expert Alex Hamerstone believes Smith and Wilson could have been victims if the person or entity spoofing, or using a disguise, possibly researched their information, or connected them with certain racial groups or organizations where a contact list could’ve been stolen.
“It's one thing to, you know, be whatever you call it, be a jerk or, or be an awful person and put your name behind it. But it's another just to hide behind a cloak of anonymity to harass people,” said TrustedSec Advisory Solution Director Alex Hamerstone.
Hamerstone doesn’t believe the message was generated by artificial intelligence. But he and National Law Enforcement Procedures and Security Expert Tim Dimoff said they aren’t ruling it out.
“They use artificial intelligence, or they manually go out on the web looking for people who have sent recent messages out and they identify their profile and, they target that,” Dimoff said.
“The only thing we need to do is protect each other,” said Smith. “That's all we can do at this point.”
The FBI is in contact with the Justice Department and other federal authorities on the matter.
