Twitter Shows Plenty of Awareness for Cyber Monday's Deals, Dangers

Social media analytics company Talkwalker said Cyber Monday was promoted in the U.S. by more than 1.1 million social media mentions in the past 30 days, with 430,000 coming within a 24-runup to the online shopping day itself. Though it’s a U.S. event, the hashtag #CyberMonday was mentioned “hundreds of thousands” of times in Europe, it said. Amazon led in mentions with more than 90,000, followed by Walmart (20,000), Samsung (14,000), Xbox one (12,000 plus), Google (over 12,000), Nintendo Switch (8,000), plus Sony, new Cyber Monday entrant Alibaba, Android and PlayStation 4, each with over 7,000, it said. It seemed everyone wanted in on the traffic the buying day would bring in. In addition to the usual retail suspects promoting their goods, our Twitter search uncovered a Realtor’s “secret” home in the Dallas area for a CyberMonday price of $799,000 and a #riseupretail post demanding better wages from Walmart for those who make Cyber Monday happen and another post protesting Amazon's impending move to New York City that "will displace existing residents." Internet guardians also used the #Cyber Monday hashtag to warn about safe shopping. The FBI tweeted: "Beware of #CyberMonday scams. If a deal looks too good to be true, it probably is." It told users to report "internet crime & #fraud schemes" to the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center. The Digital Citizen Academy tweeted tips for safe Cyber Monday Shopping: shop from a secure computer; shop using a secure connection; use trusted vendors; review credit card and bank statements regularly during the shopping season; and use unique passwords and logon information for every site visited. In 2017, 14 percent of all complaints to the FTC involved identity theft, it said.