I think the approach is clumsy and overly constrained, but I would hope the idea was that by being forced to actually interact with neighbors and their families it would increase social cohesion and empathy.
I don't think that's particularly incorrect, isolation from neighbors and the invisibility of the poor makes it a heck of a lot easier to ignore their problems.
I'm not sure in this case it's sympathy or empathy, it sounds like mere facilitation of the potential for future relationships and dialog between poor kids and people well enough off to own their own computer.
Imagining these hackers trying to individually determine whether someone has done a good enough job of pretending they're nice and whether a victim is themselves too poor to do this stuff... pretty amazing that they'd declare themselves the arbitrators of whether something is sufficiently repentant.
And posting it on social media? What, are we doxxing ourselves now to get out of ransomware attacks? I don't even have twitter or facebook or instagram or whatsapp... for good reason! Why make it performative, someone could just send them receipts if the goal was to help regardless of publicity.
Sure, sometimes. Certainly against the people applying force.
I am definitely not suggesting this approach will help, it seems like a ridiculous solution that's all about exploiting performative compassion for the sake of the hacker's egos...
But I also disagree with your statement as a blanket claim. Kids are forced to go to school and while they'll be resentful of the system or their parents or their teachers I haven't really seen kids being resentful of each other and certainly their peer group develops social cohesion and empathy for one another.
Everyone forced to do community service doesn't necessarily resent the people they are helping, they resent the judicial system.
At least, that seems like the rational response to me, it would be incredibly petty to resent some kids you take to dinner just because you're doing it due to blackmail. Resent the blackmailers...
