Comment on 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.

• Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  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.

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  • ubergeek@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    How does one get “tricked” into meeting a child for sex, and then show up?

    I’ve never been tricked into meeting a child for a sexual encounter…

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    • Xatolos@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      From the article: “In October, students at Assumption University in Massachusetts allegedly lured a 22-year-old man to campus, called him a predator and chased and attacked him when he tried to escape, according to a police report. After reviewing the man’s Tinder messages, officers said the man had thought he was meeting an 18-year-old student, not a 17-year-old, as the students had alleged.”

      Thats how. You lie.

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      • TheLowestStone@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Also, the age of consent in Massachusetts is 16.

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    • Doctor_Satan@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      You are working under the assumption that these “pedo hunter” groups are all acting in good faith and on good information. I encourage you to do some reading. There are many cases where these groups pretend to be 18 year olds, lure an unsuspecting person into a meeting, and then lie to their audience about the age they originally claimed to be online, as Xatolos has pointed out.

      Lots of them do it to lure in and attack LGBTQ+ folks, while others act on false accusations they receive from third parties::

      Innocent dad tortured and killed by group of chainsaw-wielding ‘paedophile hunters’
      A gang of vigilantes tortured and killed a father of eight as they tried to force a confession out of him for crimes he didn’t commit.
      The case of the brutal torture and murder of Bradley ‘BJ’ Lyons, which shook Australia in December 2018, is once again under the spotlight as a jury has brought to justice the gang leader, Albert Thorn, and some of his mates who helped during the hideous attack.
      Mr Lyons was referred to the gang by his wife Jana Hooper, who had falsely accused her husband of sexually assaulting two of her teenage daughters.
      Thorn, the leader of the vigilante gang with a specific hatred for paedophiles, was found guilty this month of the torture, imprisonment and murder of Mr Lyons. Later this year, he will face a pre-sentence hearing.
      Two other members of the gang who took part in the ordeal, Jordan Bottom and Rikki Smith, were found not guilty last week of the killing of the father.

      And I can’t tell you how many times they just straight up confront the wrong person. Here’s one example, and here’s another, here’s one more, and here’s yet another.

      These are not professionals. They are YouTubers looking for fame and relying on outrage and violence to get it, and they all-too-often don’t care who gets hurt or killed in the process.

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• Allero@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

  Sure, but shows of this kind imply that all pedophiles are child abusers and all child abusers are pedophiles, neither of which is true - and such equations are harmful.

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  • jj4211@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    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.

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    • Allero@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      This is one of the most problematic parts about vigilante justice and why it should be gone for good, regardless of what they are trying to achieve.

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  • ubergeek@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

    You’re getting super close to “well, akshully, it’s epehbophilia not pedophilia” territory.

    I give 0 fucks why someone rapes a kid. And I have 0 sympathy for anyone getting beaten to a pulp for raping a kid.

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    • Allero@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

      Nope, I’m not getting there. Sure, ephebophilia is a thing, and so is hebephilia, but in a given context there’s no point in this distinction.

      I’m only saying that many cases of child abuse do not involve pedophiles/hebephiles/ephebophiles/whatever. Children are the easiest to take advantage of, and this is what drives quite a few hypersexual non-pedophiles to become child abusers despite not being predominantly attracted to children/minors to begin with.

      Regardless of reasons, whoever abuses children deserves punishment - although I would much prefer for the police, not vigilantes, to be involved in it.

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      • ubergeek@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago

        Why would you expect rapists to punish rapists?

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