Online ‘Pedophile Hunters’ Are Growing More Violent — and Going Viral: With the rise of loosely moderated social media platforms, a fringe vigilante movement is experiencing a dangerous evolution.
Online ‘Pedophile Hunters’ Are Growing More Violent — and Going Viral
I always knew there was something wrong with that these people were doing but couldn't exactly put my finger on it and never talked about it because people would've yelled at me and used false dillema arguments like many people who criticized them back them recieved "You support pedophiles you removed"
One of these groups that operate out of the Pacific North West employs psychologists to create profiles on people the contact online. They target non-sex related forums like grief or mental health related support groups online. They’ll spend as much time as needed to hook these men and make them dependent on their carefully crafted online personas and even drive away their outside support groups to isolate them.
Regardless of your opinion of these individuals, going out of your way to exploit a vulnerable person and turn them into something their not is incredibly fucked up.
Ironic
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.
There's one in the white house. Why don't they seem to care about that one?
Does a criminal arrest and conviction not matter to anyone before ganging up to take someones life?
You would think an allegation serious enough to take someone's life would be at least charged by some law enforcement agency, many of these crimes require they are reported by law, and a mandatory arrest must happen if it is reported. There should be no way for anyone to be free, needing to be hunted, without a criminal history. No distinction is made between someone with a criminal history and someone without, the allegation has become enough to destroy reputations, careers and lives. History is full of situations where an other type of label and class with no rights or due process is created. Then it is applied to people as needed to eliminate them. With LGBT stuff specifically, you see the lines between these labels being blurred. Even in Russia they have blurred the lines between LGBT, child abuse, domestic terrorism and dangers to national security. It doesn't take much imagination to see it be applied in the U.S. QAnon was proof that anyone can be labelled by a large number of people with real actions taken to harm them, without any kind of formal process or charges. Just rumors that lead to vigilantes.
At some point, there is no difference between that, Daniel Penny, or Luigi Manigone. From every side, we all agree that summary executions are acceptable. The end result of this is a break down of civil society as the justifications for extrajudicial murder expand to include as many things as necessary... Even if you take something like the damage Kendrick Lamar did to Drake's career and reputation, I believe his legal defense over defamation is that it was meant as a joke. How many people would consider using these methods if they saw Drake? A lot of time has passed since that song was released, where are the criminal charges to match the damage done to him?
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.
Unsurprising as most of the "pedophile hunters" are extremist by nature, so it makes sense why they would also subscribe to extremist ideologies like Nazism and queerphobia.
Look at how much conspiracy content especially after 2016 focused on pedophilia. A lot of it. That carried over into this
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."
Nazis: If you support LGBT you’re a pedophile. And we’re already coming for you.
I'll be waiting.
There's one more angle to this - apart from the raise in vigilante violence and messing up with police operations which both are very valid.
Just as we stopped getting TV feeds constantly equating pedophiles to child molesters, those guys stepped in to fill the void.
Pedophiles are not inherently child molesters. This kind of equation is not only wrong, it also adds to promoting dangerous behaviors among them.
Plenty of pedophiles will never abuse a single child, knowing full well it is dangerous and harmful for minors to be engaged in such relationships. However, the more we equate pedophiles to predators, the more people, especially in the emotionally vulnerable groups like teen pedophiles, will actually accept themselves in this role. Among those who stands against this anyway, plenty will become suicidal, not seeing an option to live a non-offending life.
Current methods of therapy aimed at reducing child abuse rates go very strongly on this - pedophiles should face message of them not being inherently dangerous, not the message of them being an immediate and imminent danger. Not only this is scientifically correct, it is actually useful in making these people safer for others.
Not only that, but it both reduces the chance of someone going to get help, because they don't want to be hunted down, and reporting, because someone who knows of them might not want to see them be lynched, and won't report them for that reason.
That's an interesting and reasonable take.
I'm actually surprised you are not down voted to oblivion!
Guess this is what happens when you meet real people online who are not artificially enraged - a productive conversation!
There's no such thing as a "non-harmful" pedofile.
Either you're actively molesting children (yes...even teens), or you're consuming the CP that is the result of OTHER people abusing children by forcing them to participate and worse.
You don't get to say "its not repulsive to consume the product as long as youre not a creator of it". Consuming the end result is still participating in it.
I can't believe that even has to be pointed out.
...or you do neither of those?
You're clearly missing several possibilities.
The pedophiles being attacked are actively hunting, otherwise, they wouldn't be caught in a trap...
Some of these "pedo hunter" groups have attacked completely innocent people where the accusation of someone being a pedo was completely unsubstantiated. This is the problem with monetizing vigilantism: It creates a demand, and if that demand is not being met by a supply of actual criminals, then it will be filled by vigilantes criminalizing innocent people.
Sure, but shows of this kind commonly imply that all pedophiles are child abusers and all child abusers are pedophiles, neither of which is true - and such equations have real-world negative implications.
Vigilantism is on the rise regardless, Either because the police are incompetent / carefree about the complaints. or because individuals are overzealous, dont undrestand or agree with the law, and decide to cosplay as the punisher.
Or because the facade of "justice" is crumbling to reveal the truth of heirarchy behind it.
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.
Oh. They're just gonna call people pedo and attack them even though they're not. It's extremely obvious.
They're going to attack LGBT people and say they're pedos for being LGBT.
Sad because actual paedos gonna be like "who, not me, someone cried wolf on me!".... As someone who was trafficked and abused with my sister and then even after she got out, I've heard them laugh about paedos caught in the news and act like they're not exactly that. Meanwhile the people who actually hurt me stayed or died free because you also see on the news how false accusations ruin innocent people's lives, so it feels like what we say as real victims not only doesn't matter but will be ignored because sexism is back full-swing and they prefer us women to be seen and not heard once again like the old days. I wish patriarchal societies weren't hell-bent on using and ending women and children to justify their means of global blackmail control.
Or very likely make mistakes. Vigilantes is nice in comic books and movies, in real life it turns terrible very quickly.
probably under the guise of attacking lgbtq+ group.
Pedo accusations don't come from concerns for kids but from enpowerement to do violence and the ability to righteously attack.
This inversion from concern for others to desire to cause harm through paranoia derived justifications is becoming a real problem.
If someone steps in to stop them attacking the innocent they will claim those people are defending pedos.
We're going to have the stupidest of wars on our hands.
It's basically the same motivation as people who have a gun and are itching for the apocalypse so they can loose the safeties.
Even saying that it's righteous violence is ascribing positive motivations that may not exist. They're just looking for someone to attack, and an alleged paedophile is a socially acceptable target to unleash that violence on.
We’re going to have the stupidest of wars on our hands.
Finally, my decades of stupid training will pay off!
This.
Plus it's self defeating. Too often when they find real predators, the evidence is tainted by the way it was collected by idiots who have no idea what they're doing.
There's a reason an insane number of the people who publicly attack pedophillia are in fact pedophiles.
That too, but also some have been not to be pedos, I doubt these influencers will reveal the ones they attacked are not one,.bum
I assumed it was because they are so sloppy, they use it in any disagreement "you're either with us or you're a pedophile !" much in the same way we often here "don't call everyone a Nazi" Do we see many Nazi calling each other Nazi in anger and in a derogatory manner ?
One could call them the "Stupid Wars"
"Stupid wars need the MOST attention."
They should be stalking the Repuglicans in Washington. Make a ton of bounty I bet
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/
It was also an episode of CSI Miami, where a dude targeted "pedo" by planting a virus that quickly put CPnon the computer. Since the original guy did this he was arrested for Distribution of CP and was responsible for the murder by inciting a mod to attack him. The pedo that got unintentionally sent CP was then targeted by a mob, and murdered.
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.
I'd say it's also a problem that the sort of people who use the Internet to find people to beat up are idiots, so even if they aren't going out of their way to victimize minorities, odds are they'll just beat up some random person.
Don't they already do that? Them getting attacked isn't getting in a court conviction anytime soon, because it will be disregarded evidence, and it was done with prejudice too
Do people read this and fail to realize that the "calling everyone I disagree with is a Nazi" rhetoric is the exact same thing? Yes, they do
Do people read this and fail to realize that the "calling everyone I disagree with is a Nazi" rhetoric is the exact same thing?
Like how Elon can do a full Nazi salute multiple times but then throw out some rhetoric about how "they call everyone Nazis" and everyone just buys it?
Yeah I can see how they're similar.
Who are you targeting with that message? Because what's going on with the current US admin is straight out of the nazi playbook.
It feels like you are trying to get validation for your position.
Are you accusing me of being alarmist after I provided sources for the things that are actually going on?
See the problem is people see the word "Nazi" and (for some convenient reason) think people are literally talking about a card carrying member of the NSDAP, which obviously doesn't exist after 1945.
Substitute "fascist authoritarian" for "Nazi" in more modern contexts and it makes more sense.
So Conservative Pedo apologists are going to be using this to hunt Lgbtq people and the current culture war of "this is child indoctrination" despite everyone knowing that's not how this works is open season pass.
Really makes me regret not arming myself two years ago
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
That's not it. The right will lie about anything. If we change our beliefs to prevent the right from lying about us we would never have to stop changing our beliefs.
This is more about right wing militias hunting lqtb+ people under the guise of pedophilia.
Perhaps it's best to make the distinction that this is creating a new type of predator, Violence Predators. Because that's what the problem is. Right now they are going after the targets no one cares about, when they run low on those targets, either because the need for "content/violence" outpaces the supply of easy targets, some of them will find new ones, while using the old label to mask what they are doing.
So make that distinction, because it's not about the people hunting pedophiles, it's about the people hunting for violence. If there's an overlap that doesn't need to be the focus of the argument, because that's the red herring.
Poorly regulated pedo hunters that can end up ruining genuine law enforcement efforts at catching pedos aren't good.
Actually Leo don't do shit about pedophelia, because it usually involves powerful people, usually ends up being a pastor, priest of the church or one of their own, or a politician. Some sites online hide in plain site, with a format similar to r/pics if you dig deeper there's significant talk about commiting pedophelia acts, beastiality. And the sites often get taken down for other reasons besides thst
The bigger problem is that genuine law enforcement efforts are discouraged from actually catching pedophiles because they often end up being constituents of those same cops, either politically or socially. It's either a priest, a super PAC donor, or another cop on the other end of that investigation.
Genuine law enforcement efforts?
Like their efforts to protect rapists? Or the genuine efforts to vote for a rapist and pedo for POTUS? And their genuine effort to provide cover for their pastor pedo?
Seems like a lot of these pedo hunters end up being pedos themselves
Lots of projection going on here
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.
Disgusting.
Sadly as a transwoman I have heard "You should have left the kids alone!" From ex-friends who were Pro-Trans until it became "Support transpeople or support Trump", then suddenly every dirty lie they knew not to believe became truth.
I was disgusted, a former ally suddenly and without evidence starting seeing his many transfriends as paedos
Remember when Musk did it si callously
He definitely has some skeletons in his closet, he's got to have done something
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...'
Well, there’s this case.
https://www.brusselstimes.com/373981/fake-pedophile-hunter-convicted-of-child-pornography
There’s been a ton in the UK outed as predators themselves. It’s projection.
I have this questionable material for use in my honey traps.
100%
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.
but these kinds of people aren’t in it to prevent child abuse. They’re in it for themselves
you just described all republican politicians
This type of people exist in every generation, whether forming a mob to enforce segregation or engaging in pogroms.
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.
Exactly. They're violent & hateful peple who found a way to justify it.
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.
I see it as people wanting to commit righteous violence. People have violent impulses, but we usually control them. Some people with extraordinary violent tendencies go looking for a place where it’s “okay” to let them loose. This is not the only example.
Normal healthy people don't plan to commit violent offenses on other people, unless there is a direct connection to the 3rd parties actions. Hunting people they have no connection to for fame and fortune is sickening.
There is an excessive usage of the word 'hunting'. What all those people are doing is admitting that they consider people as animals, or an "acceptable" way of harassment. And just like people who where in the kkk they don't care who that person is, but that they're the most vulnerable minority.
There may be some angry former victims.
I’m going to be honest, I’m suspicious of every single ‘pedophile hunter’
I find it suspicious that they dont just go for the low hanging priest fruit in the catholic church.... this does seem to be a largely religious group of people who conveniently ignore this behavior from their own kind.
The problem is, they are going for low hanging fruit by targeting unknowns with little to no representation.
Catholic priests have the full force of the Catholic Church to protect them from legal attacks that some dinky YouTuber will not be able to combat.
Also, Catholic priests do not need to go on dating apps or websites where they could potentially get lured because they are most likely targeting the children in their parish, under their direct control.
they mistaken quite a few people.
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 have heard people saying panto should be 18+ because it has a man dressed as a woman. Your ideology is a fucking joke.
They’ve never heard of the railroad strikes of 1922 and call people free loaders for striking.
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."
The Church actually has a lower rate of child abuse than public schools....
This only happens because there is rarely justice from the state, in these cases.
How many clergy who are rapists still walk around, protected by the state?
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.
Hmm, I seem to recall Trump being a pedophile.
They don't actually care about pedophiles; a lot of them are pedophiles
When AI can create any image or video based on another person with their perfect face and voice, besides the scams that will keep increasing, the other great value of the tech is that we going to be able to create any proof and footage we want to incriminate whoever we wish.
They are already doing that shit.
Vigilantes taking the law into their own hands with violence is always a sign of a healthy society. It also never leads to tragedy.
Vigilantes not fueled by lack of justice, but by views mind you.
Ah, TikTok justice. No way for that to go wrong, nosir.
I'm completely with you on this, and I'm surprised your comment is so highly voted because this community is quick to endorse vigilantism. Just the other day I was scrolling through a thread full of comments about how a guy who was arrested should have been more brutally assaulted by an angry mob.
Vigilantism is just a sign that government has become too corrupt to deal with problems effectively. It can be good or evil, it can be effective or a complete nightmarish excuse to get rid of hated minorities or people the majority simply fell out of favor with.
But if you're a victim under that corrupt government, it's the only solution you have, so its hard not to cheer. No one is shedding tears for torched tesla's in dealerships or the dead ceo Saint Luigi was framed for killing.
Its just harder to trust and justify clout chasers attacking essentially random people they themselves labeled with a crime that no one can reasonably defend themselves against.
Heh seems to me that these pedophile hunters are just violent hateful people who found a way to make their hate and violence appear righteous.
There should be no tolerance for vigilante justice in a civilized society.
“Where [is] evil? It’s that large part of every man that wants to hate without limit, that wants to hate with God on its side.”
― Kurt Vonnegut, Mother Night
Ah that's the thing, we're not civilized
We're about to have roving gang of Nazi vs pedos! Just attacking each other like crime gangs in the streets.
This is what about when young people have no future.
We're definately less civilized than we used to be but there's still some degree of civility.
Where is this civilized society at, in the US?
More democratic areas I'd say.
A quick word to anyone seeing this and thinking "oh that's fine", look into the Snowtown Massacres". That's what it looks like when this kind of thing actually happens. Life isn't a Tarantino film, those who accomplish their aims violently are generally very dumb.
Hi everyone, just a friendly reminder that guns are legal in the United States for the time being.
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.
Same thing with the 1A auditors, aka "frauditors".
They're getting more violent because they're getting more views when they get violent.
I don't know how it works in the US, and it's certainly not perfect, but if you bring "compromised" evidences of actual child abuse, you can be sure it'll trigger some extensive investigation. Sometimes, this leads to nothing. Sometimes, the "evidences" were not really evidence, but more of a hunch. Sometimes, it leads to actual consequences.
One issue with such a vigilante system is that sometimes, you're wrong. That's why due process is a thing. But the "this evidence was collected illegally, so we won't even look up the guy" thing isn't really a thing, as long as the evidence is better than "I'm sure of it".
Well honestly it seems they may be the most qualified to do this work at this point then
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
Have they tried looking in churches and the Republican party?
That would get them regulated, they're only going after the "correct" "bad people"
Catholic church is just the tip but it is a low hanging fruit.
Lists are out there.
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?
Like when one police precinct sets up a drug bust on an undercover cop from another precinct pretending to be a drug dealer.
That is fucking genius
Republicans and Church leaders everywhere are terrified.
Beating up pedophiles sounds great, so does beating up rapists and murderers, but remember you can be called a pedophile for leaning in close to a kid in a photo. "B-but in this case it really WAS a bad guy" doesn't justify mob violence. I don't want my safety to depend on the right people being in a particular mob on a Thursday.
Genuinely surprised and relived by the amount of common sense in this comment thread, that's all I have to say
Here and the New York Times comments are both pretty great. This type of behavior is just plain old indefensible even when the victims aren't sympathetic. We also know that it's not going to stay limited to just reprehensible people
I don’t have a problem with actual pedophiles that are caught in these dragnets.
My problem arises from the lack of rigorous and well-documented investigation into the target before shite starts popping off. As the article pointed out, there is nothing wrong with a 22yo dating an 18yo. And the problem here is a sense of vindictiveness trying to manufacture targets where not all targets are guilty of pedophilia.
So: you want to take a pipe wrench to warm over a pedophile? Make sure there is oodles of evidence that clearly and unambiguously makes the person a pedophile, and sure as shite I will look the other way. But the problem is that there is no self-reinforcing framework in place within the vigilante system to ensure and enforce this threshold of evidence. And without this system, innocent people are going to get hurt or killed.
You and the people upvoting you are gravely mistaken.
This isn't about protecting the innocent.
It is about inflicting unaccountable violence.
I'm going go assume from your instance you're not American, but the big flaw in your logic is if you come after me with a pipe, I'm absolutely within my rights to put holes into you until you stop moving.
Vigalante justice is going to get the people who think they're "doing a good thing" killed, and with zero consequences to the pedos who shoot them.
Perhaps a more adult, informed, nuanced take is of use here?
Sometimes criminals also shoot back at the police that come after them with guns.
In the heat of the moment, the only difference between a vigilante and a cop is the level of training, the assigned equipment, and the choice for the cop to follow well-established procedural rules. It’s only when you zoom out do you see the legal system supporting the cop. But when zoomed in and examining the individual incidents, nothing says the cop can’t come away with added lead, either.
As the article pointed out, there is nothing wrong with a 22yo dating an 18yo.
Who said there is anything wrong with this?
How is tbsi even example of pedophile rape? It is two adults.
that's a weird thing to bring NYT tbh
Didn't see NYT editor get caught with videos of rape of his own children on his phone recently?
Maybe NYP?
Sadly there are a lot of weirdos who think ANY AGE GAP AT ALL is basically the same as pedophilia
Who said there is anything wrong with this?
How is tbsi even example of pedophile rape? It is two adults.
that's a weird thing to bring NYT tbh
Tell me you completely failed to grok my criticisms without saying that they flew clear over your head at 10,000m
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.
corner a pedo
And since these are internet vigilante kids with no oversight, they will inevitably corner some non-pedos too.
Put yourself in that situation- a couple teenagers with cameras approach you on the street and start accusing you of some of the sickest crimes imaginable. Even though the accusation is false, this has the potential to ruin your career, your relationships, your entire life.
I'm not sure how anyone would respond, or should respond, but I can definitely see how people might resort to violence when falsely accused of this horrible shit on camera.
Just happened here in Austria. Police took 20 people into custody (13 have since been formally arrested) for luring people to fake dates where they beat them up.
The suspects said they hunted pedophiles, but at least in some of the cases they targeted young adults who expected to come to a date with 16-18 year olds.
Exactly. Vigilante justice is not the solution here, it's only going to get a lot of people hurt.
The huge issue with these vigilantes is accusing someone of pedophilia, like rape, can have damning consequences on someones life. Beyond losing their job they could take their own life.
To catch a predator was a good series because it was a sting. They had adults pose as teens and bait pedos to a house.
You wouldn't go to that damn house with the home alone teen unless you wanted to commit statutory rape.
That's what I was thinking of. Thanks!
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
That's why I find reddit so strange. Age gaps is apparently the most demonic thing you can do. No matter if you're 19 dating a 17 or 34 dating a 27 you're a huge red flag either way.
In UNRELATED NEWS in Free Republican States Trans and Gay people are Legally PEDOPHILES!
You can tell they are Free because of all the people they are hurting.
What are ‘Free Republican States’ ?
States FREE from LIBTARDS obviously.
Can we do billionaires next? There is surely a little overlap.
Reminder, those "Pedophile Hunters" don't really give a damn about children.
They're sadists who are out to hurt & kill
As a main communitymember on a site with chats used by a huge amount of kids, I have seen how the internet makes it very easy, compared to oldentimes, for pedos to be in areas high in children. One of the kids there often complains about pedos and asked me to help remove them. So, with kids being a defenseless flock of animals, there ARE kids who then take a Defender role and they become the ouster of pedos. Also noteworthy is, right before I emailed an official pedocatching organization, the kid I was helping got in a confrontation and spilled the antipedo plans; which alerted the pedos and spoiled the plan. So the issue with kids doing high stakes things is they are mentally still children.
overall, pedos in kid areas, thanks to the internet, feels, to me, also on the rise. And those areas SHOULD have the pedos removed in an organized acceptable fashion; and that that doesn't happen causes some Defender kids to think they need to do it themselves.
imo get better real official pedo prevention measures up in kid spaces to reduce vigilantiism.
Reddit has/had a problem in some of the medical subs a while back, I was reading a post where the minors were being contacted PM by them. Since alot of them are skin diseases, they were ask more to reveal more about their bodies. I'm guessing reddit never caught on immediately, because it was private messaging
Bread and circuses
Not advocating for all this, but if they really cared, couldn't they just run down the registered sex offender list and start with the multiple convictions?
couldn’t they just run down the registered sex offender list
The point of their channels is usually to find new predators that haven't been caught, so they can then face legal consequences, (or at least be pushed to stop acting on their desires) rather than to punish people for being pedophiles in general, so it wouldn't really make sense to go after those who were already convicted.
Is this an angelfire website in the 90's? Who the hell thought a background amalgamation of moving images was the best way to present printed media?
I just can't with these websites anymore. I find it almost impossible to read when there's a embedded video as it is.
Firefox's reader view (ctrl alt r) is a godsend for cases like these.
Thanks for pointing this out. I usually read articles on mobile so I was able to find a feature I didn't know about. For anyone else on android: https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/view-articles-reader-view-firefox-android
Regular ublock origin does a great job for both automated and manual page cleanup.
For cases when the page is still borderline unusable, Firefox's reader view is a must.
Trying to read the text with the insane collage of actively playing videos made me feel motion sickness
They see them everywhere except in their own home
Israel is a know destination for exposed pedophiles...
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
And if anyone calls them out on it, they're immediately branded as "pedophile sympathizers" if not actual pedophiles themselves. So, not only do they get to be violent monsters, saying that they shouldn't commit horrible violence without any sort of legal oversight (or at all, really) makes YOU the bad guy!
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.
A person does not need to point out all problems when pointing out one problem.
When they go after the wrong person, yes. When they decide to both be the police, judge and executioner, yes.
But if the judiciary system doesn't do it's work, what do you expect.
Disproportionate punishment is another of course. They probably lump pedophiles (a person with a psychiatric disorder) and child molesters (a person that actually harms children) into the same group and you deserve to die for simply thinking the wrong things.
"less oversight than police." A bar so low you need a shovel to get under it.
It should be illegal if they do not call the police afterwards they are done with their personal justice
It's unfortunate this has to be taken into the hands of vigilantes. But it seems to me a necessary evil.
paedophiles are horrible people but dateline culture was the worst thing to happen to pop culture lexicon
Dateline always felt wrong and I support the wood chipper solution but only after proper due process...
With that being said if a pedo gets killed, I don't cru about it.
There are plenty of more worth while victims in the us daily.
Fucking ice gestapo doing rendition on US street... WTF
Did people not watch The Hunt?
Better rules for them to follow might be a compromise. And harsh penalties for failing to follow them as it can mess up real police investigations too.
I wish I hadn't gone down this rabbit hole, but according to study data, 1 in 6 people want to touch kids. https://theconversation.com/a-survey-found-1-in-6-men-admit-sexual-feelings-for-children-so-is-paedophilia-increasing-218124
Don't worry. That article was awful and the reporter is ignorant of how statistics work.
First of all, it's not all men. It's "all Australian men." And second of all, it's not 1 in 6. It's probably more like 1 in 20. Still a high number, but not as high as the reporter makes it out to be.
The reporter ignored that the data can overlap.
Sort of like saying:
Pete would never let anyone slap him. Joe says he is willing to be slapped for $1000. He would also do it for $500. He would also do it for $200. Based on the above, THREE men out of four would be willing to be slapped for $1000 or less!!!!
While pedophile hunters seem barbaric to me, I don't have kids.
I do have a dog, and dog hunter hunters, as in "people hunting dog hunters", seem all right for me.
Cowards really like to inflict pain on creatures not well enough protected by the law. So hunting them is maybe good for the society.
So deontology and principles and morals only matter when they are challenged by one's own impulses. Innocent until proven guilty in the court of law.
I think you can dislike pedophiles and even want to see them punished, yet still recognize that some asshole doing it to get revenue from their YouTube channel is not the right solution.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that most crime is the result of either poverty or neurological flaws, and torture is not the best solution to either problem.
People need to be kept safe, and the criminal justice system is ostensibly the mechanism we've decided to use for that.
You can dislike pedophiles and dog hunter yet still recognize some asshole doing it out of inflamed self-righteousness with no regard for evidence, human rights, due process is not the right solution. If even the legal system with all its checks and balances gets things wrong so often, what can you expect from some asshole out for blood?
The criminal justice system is meant to not only seek justice for victims, keep us safe from predation….. well yes vigilantism is another form of predation. Their self-righteousness doesn’t absolve their guilt. Heck, at least most pedophiles don’t try to defend themselves as doing their job right thing
Yes, yes, I know all that. I meant that all this conversation is rather useless because when actually compelled to do something, most people ignore principles.
Let’s be real- we know who they’re catching. I’m fine with this. Keep on doing whatever to MAGA trash.
Well, I get you are trying to state that MAGA people are pedofiles, and I am not here to stop you from that. But you also assume they catch actual pedofiles. However, there are cases where they have contacted people with an intellectual disability, and then you cannot be really sure the person really is sexually in to children, since with enough pushing you can get such persons to agree to a meeting anyway... just because you pushed. Regardless of how awful the crime is, we cannot accept vigilantes.
This crew also confuses homosexuals with pedophiles, so be careful on Grindr, k?
Also many of these "vigilantes" are not doing this out of the goodness of their hearts. This is a popular subgenre of hate-porn on YouTube that gets a lot of attention. I wouldn't trust anyone who does this for clout and attention to put in the work that is needed to ensure that they get the right person since you can just about fake any evidence on a YouTube video. This is the equivalent of giving a homeless person thousands of dollars and putting it on YouTube for views.
I remember looking up the people To Catch A Predator worked with and reading some of their chat logs. The decoy was always very upfront in giving an age unambiguously below the age of consent in their jurisdiction, and never initiated conversation about sex or suggested meeting in person.
Of course, the decoy would always agree to do so if the offender asked, but the criminal conduct was unambiguously criminal, and unambiguously the offender's idea. What we see in this article appears to abandon that sort of rigor to manufacture more opportunities to confront someone.
real cops do this too, though not execution style.
Regardless of how awful the crime is, we cannot accept vigilantes.
Speak for yourself.
MAGA would deport you for having the wrong color skin regardless of your citizenship. I’m find with ruining their lives regardless of any crimes committed. This wouldn’t have been the case a couple years ago- but things have changed.
The word pedophile is so weirdly used. If an older man or lady meets a 16 year old.. their technically not one, but in this day of age.. they would be consider one to society..but they would be consider a Sex Offender. Depending on Level 1 or 2.. all depends on what they did and if their state will think they will re-offend or not. Most Level 1’s do not.
we know who they’re catching.
No. No you do not.
"We know who they are. We don't really need due process. I'm not one of those people so nothing bad could ever happen to me so I don't care"
Seriously, the amount of times I see violations of civil/human rights being acceptable because they're "the enemy" is really sad. Do you have no self awareness? That's EXACTLY what they're doing to you. Stop being a pot of crabs pulling us back in. Be better.
This is what i'm imagining: Hey and welcome to the kill people yt channel! Like and subscribe. Hey chat, we need money for a new camera. Anyone know any pedos we can go and kill? Sounds like chat doesn't like this whodrankarnoldpalmer. Sounds like a sus guy. If we reach our donation we will drag him behind our car for you guys. We will be puting this guys fingers on ebay btw, so look out for that.
Hang on- do you think this is not EXACTLY what will be coming from the alt-right sooner than later? I mean, for your sake, I hope you’re right- I don’t live in the states- I live in a developed country where I’m somewhat more insulated from this garbage. Feel free to wait around and see how it shakes out, I guess.
No they stay away from their family members, they're likely just going after people they hate.
