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.
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.
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.
In practice, I don’t see how I would even know someone is a pedophile if they didn’t act on their inclinations. I guess they could publicly declare it but that seems unwise.
I would be concerned if the Internet vigilantes ran with unsubstantiated rumors, like if say Elon musk just called someone a pedophile or of the blue.
That’s an interesting and reasonable take.
I’m actually surprised you are not down voted to oblivion!
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.
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
They’ve never heard of the railroad strikes of 1922 and call people free loaders for striking.
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 see them everywhere except in their own home
They should be stalking the Repuglicans in Washington. Make a ton of bounty I bet
Oh. They’re just gonna call people pedo and attack them even though they’re not. It’s extremely obvious.
Or very likely make mistakes. Vigilantes is nice in comic books and movies, in real life it turns terrible very quickly.
Just prove you’re not a pedo and they will leave you alone.
Good luck proving you’re not anything to an angry mob.
You forgot the /s…
I never use /s. /s is the training wheels of online comments. /s is for cowards. Ride or die baby!
If anyone takes me seriously, it’s their own damn fault.
Ha, rock on with your bad self.
Reminder this fuckface ruined the investigation into Onision for his show.
They’re going to attack LGBT people and say they’re pedos for being LGBT.
probably under the guise of attacking lgbtq+ group.
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.
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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”
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
People get called things over fanfics and stuff. Innocent people have plenty to be afraid of
As a writer myself, I can only imagine how many the “All characters are 18 or older unless specifically said otherwise” blurb has saved. I feel like that blurb has become standard in fanworks and web original stories, even when they don’t involve sex. If there’s even the slightest chance anything that happens could be interpreted as someone’s kink, you better believe it’s there now.
I actually have one character from a series I wrote ages ago, I kind of abandoned it because I’m not edgy anymore, but I still use the lead character from time to time for art projects; commissions mostly, as she did have a fun character design being an undead gerbil and all.
I’ve retroactively upped her age from 17 to 19, just to be safe.
Though as I said, I was REALLY edgy when I wrote the book series (I was around 19 myself, I’m 33 now), so this is a change I’m actually happy to have made.
It wasn’t pornographic, it was based on the movie “I Spit On Your Grave”, only if the lead character was killed and got revenge from beyond the grave, so there was a sex scene with her, but it was intended to be immorally wrong and disturbing… and mostly talked about how this otherwise fearless street tough was suffering… It was also over quick and not elaborated on too much beyond giving the sense that “This is horrible and she’s very much not a fan” as the point of the book was that she died horribly, but was given a chance at revenge in the afterlife. (There wasn’t even a content warning, because this was so long ago that “CWs” weren’t a thing)
I’ve actually considered doing a reboot of her story and making it lighter and softer, maybe removing the rape from her death entirely.
Not because of fears of being targeted mind you, but because I like the character I created and would love to tell more stories with her, but I’m not the edgelord I was when I first wrote her and if I wrote about her today would never have handled her story the way I did.
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
The point I was making… Is that the article brought a red herring fact that has nothing to do with anything
Why did they bring it up?
The point I was making… Is that the article brought a red herring fact that has nothing to do with anything
Why did they bring it up?
It was not a red herring in the least, and it struck to the very core of my own criticisms: while some vigilantes may be very stringent about their own investigations and targets, others may not.
In this example, these vigilantes artificially engineered a target where none was likely to ever exist. They drew the target in using the profile of a perfectly legal 18yo woman, but then turned around and claimed that the target was actually chasing the profile of an 17yo - and illegally young - girl, when he was in fact not doing so.
This was a very clear situation of entrapment by false pretenses.
That’s what police already does tbh
Also, if somebody is doing that and gets caught, I doubt they will get any sympathy from society.
Vigelanty justice only works when target deserved like the dead CEO, otherwise it just crime.
Vigelanty justice only works when target deserved like the dead CEO, otherwise it just crime.
You clearly see the world in black-and-white, when it really is made up of shades of grey.
Which means that since you haven’t already gotten the point, all the crayons and construction paper in the world isn’t going to help.
I am sorry somebody said something you didn’t like online search ;)
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.”
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
Great. Just dump anyone you dislike as a “pedophile” and then it’s a free for all.
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.
Hmm, I seem to recall Trump being a pedophile.
They don’t actually care about pedophiles; a lot of them are pedophiles
Yes.
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.
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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.
No, I think this is it. This is the media doing what media does
Solid argument 10/10 on the gymnastics routine.
Seems like a lot of these pedo hunters end up being pedos themselves
Lots of projection going on here
Poorly regulated pedo hunters that can end up ruining genuine law enforcement efforts at catching pedos aren’t good.
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?
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.
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
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.
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.
Is that really the only problem you see with people taking justice into their own hands? Less oversight?
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.
I can assure you that the judiciary system in my country does work. It’s just that these people either a. just want to beat someone up and need an excuse, or b. don’t agree with our laws and think it should be prison time for a 18 year old who wants to date a 16 year old, or a 21 year old who wants to date a 17 year old.
Even if the judiciary system in your country doesn’t do its work, people taking justice in their own hands is a fundamentally bad thing for a society. I don’t pity predators if they get what they deserve, but I pity the society that suddenly has to define boundaries - where do you draw the line? Not all cases are clear cut. Not everyone operates on the same set of morals.
Example: Religious zealots really do believe that abortions kill children. If society doesn’t categorically forbid people to take justice into their own hands but goes “well, in this case, we can all understand”, you will have other people acting in ways they perceive as equally justifiable. And then abortion doctors get murdered.
The users who downvoted me don’t seem to have this understanding, they would rather have revenge. If you people don’t understand that self-justice will ultimately lead to a more violent society, then go ahead, downvote me again. You’re the reason your country isn’t a more civilized place, wherever you live.
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.
They lump far more people into the same group. They attack anyone whom they think they can, even if they know that their accusations are BS.
The problem is what if they mistake somebody for the wrong person? That’s enough to destroy an innocent persons life.
The government mistakes people for wrong person all the time too though
Sometimes on purpose
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?
So … What you’re saying, it’s that there would be less oversight when it comes to choosing their targets. Almost exactly like OP said. Almost like they were speaking in broad strokes and you failed to notice any nuance.
Bruh, why are you taking umbrage? Chill, I didn’t shit on your birthday cake.
Honestly? I just don’t really like that reddit behaviour of regurgitating the previous person’s comment and passing it off as your own unique idea, that’s all.
I took a general comment and said something very specific. What you saw as dual meaning, I saw as one. OP did not make their intended meaning clear.
Maybe we can be better than Reddit and be more charitable with each other here, yeah?
A person does not need to point out all problems when pointing out one problem.
“less oversight than police.” A bar so low you need a shovel to get under it.
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
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!
They can deflect doubt because they are hunting pedophiles.
“You wouldn’t defend a pedophile now, would you?” - clout chasing violence monger
And if you haven’t found any pedophiles yet, well, I guess you’re not trying hard enough. Or maybe… you are one of them… 😠
Can’t believe this needs an /s
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.
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It’s usually done by posing as a teenager in chats, then they get confronted at the meet-up.
Pretty solid way to identify the right person.
Pretty solid way to identify the right person.
And that’s why entrapment is a legally sanctioned investigation strategy for law enforcement.
Oh, wait, it isn’t, because of all the abuses that resulted from its use.
It depends on how these channels are going about finding their victims for it to be considered similar.
Remember, entrapment is based around luring someone to do something they otherwise would not have done had the operation to entrap them not occurred. If they created an account posing as a minor, then directly DM’d a person asking if they wanted to do x/y/z with a minor, that would be entrapment.
But if they made an account claiming to be a minor on social media, and the person contacted them voluntarily, asked their age, was told it was under 18 and still continued messaging, then sent explicit photos, that’s not entrapment.
However, if they were then the people who initiated the conversation about wanting the person to come to their house / visit them somewhere, that could be considered entrapment, and the only evidence against the person that could be eligible for use in court would be the explicit material they sent without being prompted.
It varies case-by-case, but from what I’ve seen, most of the larger operations tend to try and avoid entrapment-like tactics in most cases, where they only allow the other person to initiate unlawful behaviors, rather than prompting anything themselves.
These folks include presenting a false person as being of age, then switching to underage at the time of meetup when the target shows up.
A group descends upon the target who is now told they’re a pedophile.
Then the group tries to kill the person who was trying to meet what they thought was an adult.
And the perpetrators think this is justice.
These folks include presenting a false person as being of age, then switching to underage at the time of meetup when the target shows up.
I’ve never seen even a single instance in my own viewership of numerous channels that engage in pedophile hunting where the person is presented as being above the legal age of consent, then only switching to underage at the time of the meeting. They’re presented as underage from the get-go.
Then the group tries to kill the person
Again, this doesn’t seem to be a widespread thing compared to the number of them that simply lure them to a location then ask them questions (and directly state that they are free to leave at any time since they’re not law enforcement and can’t arrest them) The people you’re talking about are a small minority of both the actual number of pedo hunters, and the number of overall views received.
And the perpetrators think this is justice.
I doubt the people that are explicitly lying to farm content think it’s justice. I do believe the people actually catching people who voluntarily contacted someone presented as underage from the start do.
Ah, catch a predator style. Gotcha. Removed my comment because it was wrong. So far anyway.
I mean, I don’t know that ALL of them work that way, but the ones I’ve seen do. I have mixed feelings about the whole scenario.
I’m not a fan of vigilantism or mob justice save for the removal of objectively destructive and tyrannical leadership. Too many ways to get it wrong.
