Two things I've noticed about new members, particularly female members:
1. Where catfishing is involved, the ONLY profiles that get suspended are ones with numbers in their users names. This includes people who may not actually be catfish at all.
2. Any catfish who can be PROVEN as catfish that do NOT have numbers in their names will not get suspended even if you get the warning the message "Do not share your contact details." In fact only mass reporting of these particular profiles will get suspension to occur.
And bear in mind, this comes from actual research: Purposefully messaging new accounts to figure out whether or not people are spammers or the real deal and I can come to one general conclusion. The only way to get rid of spammers/catfish is to make profile verification MANDATORY.
You don't have to put public photos on your profile or posts if you want to remain anonymous and private, but ALL members new AND old should be REQUIRED to verify their profile or get suspended. This holds true for most of the internet, including on dating apps, by the way.
Spammers and catfish take advantage of the fact that websites won't make verification mandatory. It's the fact that (and I'm about to risk suspension myself for what I'm about to say) but the staff who runs SW DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THIS PROBLEM. That is not an opinion. That is an ironclad FACT.
IF they cared, they would DO something about this. A catfish can't pass the verification unless they use an AI generated image and the staff can make it so AI generated images don't qualify as legit verification. Therefore, by making verification mandatory, catfish would be unable to use this platform at all.
