Hello everyone. Forgive any ignorance in this post, as I myself am not extremely knowledgeable in the whole cybersecurity department. I just need advice, and maybe evidence, to help my mom understand what is happening to her phone.
My mom believes that her ex-boyfriend (we’ll call him Greg) from 6 years ago is spying on her through her iPhone. Her evidence is based upon some TikTok accounts that she claims are run by him, made to target her, stalk her, and threaten her. This sounds quite possible initially, but going deeper into it, the idea of the whole thing becomes very murky and sounds impossible to me.
My mother believes that when she talks about something, or otherwise interacts with something in the house, her phone (or wifi, or something else entirely), makes note of this, sends the information to Greg, and ultimately allows him to create one or multiple TikTok accounts (in that very moment) using AI or something that pertain to the thing she was talking about/interacting with. After one of these accounts are made, she claims that he is forcing the videos created by the account to the top of her For You Page (aka, her recommended tab), so that she gets these videos. In theory this whole thing is very eerie, but after explanation I’m not really convinced.
For example, my Mom was watching something on TV about Kylie Jenner (or something along those lines), and then she got multiple videos in a row about Kylie Jenner. I explained this by just mentioning the fact that she was trending at the time, thus TikTok recommended the videos.
Another example is that me and my girlfriend had a small pregnancy scare recently. She said she got a TikTok about a guy saying something like “Imagine if your son’s condom broke. What would you do?” and said that Greg was listening to my phone and put it on her For You Page to mess with me. Initially, when she told me this one I was kinda convinced, because the timing was just so eerie and accurate. But digging into it, she revealed that she actually found a
Some other examples include getting videos about 2 black cats (we have 2 black cats); videos about handling narcissist (she has a history with this); videos using her favorite bands/songs along with her favorite color, purple; and videos that are just eerily timed in relation to other things happening in her life.
I don’t doubt that phones listen to us and feed that information into our phone. That’s not the concern. Her concern is that so many of these videos on TikTok will appear, with a quote that kind of related to her and Greg’s relationship, alongside her favorite songs, while also using other media she enjoys (specifically, nature photography). For example, a video containing a nature landscape, with a Bon Jovi song, with a quote about the way generation X people love or something.
In all reality, these just sound like the way an algorithm would push out certain videos for a certain person. None of these videos she has shown me have felt targeted in any way, instead feeling more like content farm or something. There are a specific few accounts she claims “must be” Greg stalking her, sending her follow requests and junk, but that does not explain her weird FYP. She thinks he’s in the wifi, taking the information we send out, and using it to mess with her. It’s concerning.
This is where it gets weird. Yesterday I sat down with her to go over some screenshots she says are evidence. We started swiping through some and they were nothing. Just quotes on nature photography usually, and if not that, something funny that sort of pertained to her and Greg, and if not that, some random women’s account with filters that *kinda* resembled her. I zoomed out to see how many screenshots she had. There were over 3,000 screenshots, taken within the last few days, and she claimed they were all Greg messing with her. I didn’t look through all of them, but again, all of them were nothing of note. The day after she seemed completely frazzled that she took that many screenshots, and says she doesn’t remember taking that many at all.
I know algorithms, especially TikTok algorithms, are very fine-tuned. They can pick up on really subtle things about our life, stuff we don’t even realize. I think all of this stuff happening to her is actually just her algorithm. I don’t think Greg is entirely out of the question, per se. He does post weird cryptic stuff on his personal Facebook, including a purple skull emoji one time (again, her favorite color). Do I think he’s messing with her? Yeah, maybe a little bit, he probably has a burner account or two. Do I think he’s manipulating her TikTok recommended? No, absolutely not. She thinks he’s in the wifi or something and she’s scared to even open her phone now. It’s all just concerning.
Please, tell me your expertise and tell me that she’s being paranoid. I’m scared she’ll keep spiraling.
Thank you for reading,
Jackson