I’m going to be honest, I’m suspicious of every single ‘pedophile hunter’. They are going after a demographic that people will not rush to defend, even if innocent.
Also, these ‘hunters’ probably have something shady going on in their own lives, and this is some form of projection that they also profit off of.
I wouldn't even be surprised if a bunch of them are pedophiles themselves. Projection and such.
'I sit online all day pretending to be a teen girl and getting into dirty chats with strangers, it's OK though because I'm doing it to stop the creeps...'
There’s been a ton in the UK outed as predators themselves. It’s projection.
Well, there’s this case.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/373981/fake-pedophile-hunter-convicted-of-child-pornography
In Norway last year we had a case where 5 16-19 yo set up a sextrap for a guy in his 40s.
The teens claimed he’s a pedo, beat him, filmed it and posted it online.
All of the “pedohunters” involved were found guilty on all accounts. The guy is free and getting a big pay out from the teens.
It’s really unfortunate, but these kinds of people aren’t in it to prevent child abuse. They’re in it for themselves.
There was a similar case that happened on a college campus in America. Five 18 year -old students, all of whom can legally consent, lured a guy toward the dorms through a dating app. When he arrived, the students swarmed him with phones out calling him a pedophile. They are now being charged.
100%.
There is an old trope about arsonists, they either become criminals or they become firefighters.
At least with firefighters, we don't have to worry about if the firefighter is going to get the fire in a room alone later.
Also, the almost universal knee-jerk response that we have as a society broadly to child predation makes a helluva mask for trampling on the rights of others and making a scapegoat that will be condemned in the public court long before any charges are brought up. The absolute ease and temptation of creative editing and a thirst for views can make the producers of this content work harder to portray events out-of-context.
I'm sure there are plenty of actual predators who are worried about being hit with a sting, but I have seen more than a handful clips of these rogue pedo-hunters going after like, 21-year-old boys and their 17-year-old girlfriends, and people who looked genuinely confused and seemed railroaded into meeting someone.
I know this message will never stick with the wildly reactionary and emotional viewership who needs to hear it, but we make vigilantism illegal for a damn good reason, and just because Dateline managed to stay above the waterline for the most part, that doesn't mean some operation of randos you know nothing about on youtube have both the best intentions and the legal acumen to actually make a difference. They may well be making the problem worse by setting up situations where stings against child predators could become outlawed.
Vigilantes taking the law into their own hands with violence is always a sign of a healthy society. It also never leads to tragedy.
Lots of people in the comments are failing to see the issue with this, so allow me to illustrate. Fair warning, this will not be an easy read.
So let's imagine you really hate trans people, gay people, and liberals. Unfortunately for you, none of these are crimes (yet), so you can't just go around assaulting and killing these people indiscriminately, as much as you'd like to. So what are you going to do?
Well, the best hate campaigns start with a shared enemy, and nobody is more hated than a child predator. Best of all, you can do pretty much whatever you want to them with no recourse. What are they going to do, call the police? Nobody is going to speak out against what you're doing, because if they do, you can just say that if they don't support you, then they must be defending child predators!
Now that we have a precedent for violence, it's time to expand our scope a bit. Since hunting pedophiles is a-ok, now you just need to label anyone you don't like a pedophile. You could say gay and trans people are pedophiles and groomers. And again, if anyone opposes you, just call them a groomer too!
But maybe that's not enough for you. No, you want to make sure that you can target anyone who disagrees with you. Well good news, because you can just join a group of people who believe that anyone who dislikes Donald Trump is a deep state pedophile. You don't even need evidence anymore, and there's a good chance the cops will be on your side! Happy hunting!
Seriously though, this vigilante "justice" should not be celebrated. Yes, we need to take child predators off the streets, but there is a process for that. Denying anyone due process opens the door to denying it to everyone.
These type of discussions remind me of a case in Minnesota where a neighbor framed their neighbor by hacking their wifi and planting child pornography.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/man-gets-18-yrs-for-wifi-hack-child-porn-frame/
I wish that article had more information on how the framed person proved their innocence. It's probably boring but he must have felt like he was taking crazy pills when he was framed.
In Austria the 'pedophile hunters' targeted gay men who were not pedophiles. If 'pedophile hunters' would actually care about their cause, they would storm the next church...
This is obviously where this is going and it's a big part why they're obsessed with labeling people "groomers."
Only one thing to do: set two pedophile hunters up on a date.
kinda like an inverted version of that Black Mirror episode but instead of making two pedophiles kill each other, we get the hunters to hut each other?
Oh. They're just gonna call people pedo and attack them even though they're not. It's extremely obvious.
I’d make a guess they’re getting violent because the legal system can’t do anything with their compromised evidence. Instead of realizing they’re not the people qualified to do this work, they’re just doubling down and “handling it themselves.”
They're experiencing positive re-enforcement when they get violent with the people they've intrapped. They're getting more violent because they want more of the positive online feedback they've been getting.
There is no lofty thought process about justice.
They're getting more violent because they're getting more views when they get violent.
Great. Just dump anyone you dislike as a "pedophile" and then it's a free for all.
especially when you have people like elon musk calling people they don't like paedophiles and winning defamation suits over it by claiming he calls everyone paedophiles.
This is a symptom. If police won't do it's job there will be some guys who will take it into their own hands. The problem is they have even less oversight than police.
Pedophile hunting is among several vigilante movements in the United States. Groups in the South try to catch alleged drug smugglers at the border; others monitor local crime. The new wave of pedophile hunters stands out for adopting the social media influencer model, using real-life violence to build a following online.
This is about clout chasing and being violent monsters
They can deflect doubt because they are hunting pedophiles.
"You wouldn't defend a pedophile now, would you?" - clout chasing violence monger
Is that really the only problem you see with people taking justice into their own hands? Less oversight?
The problem is what if they mistake somebody for the wrong person? That's enough to destroy an innocent persons life.
That's not the only problem. They're making content, so finding "the right person" will inevitably be less important than finding a person. Can't fall out of the Almighty Algorithm's favor, amirite?
This is part of the reason why casual accusations of pedophilia have always disturbed me. Because it can lead even people who in most other circumstances would be considered pro-justice and pro-human rights into mini-Mengeles.
And I've seen people just throw out the accusation without even prompt or justification, just because they hate somebody (maybe for other good reasons) and want to see if it sticks. It's fucked up.
Then there's other cases like that one where that 18-year-old got jumped for being baited into going on a date with another 18-year-old, while under the impression that she was... at least 18. A couple of people posted about that already.
Yeah, I got accusations thrown at me after letting a trans lady crash at my place when she came out and her ex-wife kicked her out of the house. Everybody was an adult, but the ex-wife found a friend in the TERFs, and they think trans rights is pedo apologism.
I got molested by my babysitter when I was 5, and it was incredibly infuriating to hear people say it was the same as a fucking divorce.
Reddit would be outraged about an 18 yo dating a 16 yo, though. Some people have really weird and unrealistic views on this
Those Redditors are probably 16 year olds themselves upset that the girls they like are always going for 18 - 20 year olds
Oh hey, it's "won't somebody please think of the children?" taken to the streets for internet clout! Absolutely nothing wrong can happen there! /s
shit gonna morph into persecuting queer people real quick.
And then when it’s pointed out a bunch of mfs are gonna say. “Why are you AFRAID?? WhAt aN odd tHinG to sAy!! they’re only going after bad people!”
like shit brother. right on brother. Im sorry. I guess all those 1920’s lynch mobs were only going after criminals too then 🤷♂️. Matter of fact I bet no innocent people were hurt, and it wasn’t because of the color of their skin at all. Only criminals! /s
I had a friend who was visiting Florida, and this vigilante group from some church setup a Grindr account to catch gay men. They made a profile of a guy in his 20s, had convos and planned to meet, then asked him to talk on some other platform, where his profile said he was underage. Keep in mind, this is just a fictional person. And the Florida court loves to toss LGBT in jail, so beware out there.
I monitor far-right groups pretty intensively and a good chunk of Paedophile Hunters are key organisers of said groups.
Its also not uncommon for far-right groups to be family operations where the adults will groom their teenage children into organizing and encourage their children to date other, often older, fascist organisers.
Nazis: If you support LGBT you're a pedophile. And we're already coming for you.
People, for some fucking reason: Pedophiles get fucked, do what you want to them, erase them at any cost!!
"Please hold this paper target in front of your face while I shoot at it."
"Sounds dangerous but I see you are aiming at the paper so I should be fine."
What this ultimately amounts to is the worst actors using a blanket justification to carry out revenge fantasies against whatever marginalized group they're fixated on.
If you happen to be part of any of these marginalized groups, now would be the time to get armed and get dangerous. It would be great if we lived in a functioning society where this wasn't necessary, but the failure of so many of our institutions is slowly rewinding our social fabric back to wild west times.
Oh I get it. So this stuff gets pushed on left wing spaces. Then the left wing adopts this ethos where they say "pedo hunters aren't good" then the right goes "oh you're all pedophiles" and then the divide is bigger
Didn't an entire TV show get into some serious hot water for doing this sort of thing which resulted in someone committing suicide while filming an episode? These people are potentially putting themselves in serious danger if they corner a pedo who feels like they have nowhere to run or anything left to lose.
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