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 to live in a world where my safety depends on the right people being in the mob.
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.
Submitted 2 months ago by Tea@programming.dev to technology@lemmy.world
Comments
LovableSidekick@lemmy.world 2 months ago
DicJacobus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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.
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 2 months ago
Or because the facade of “justice” is crumbling to reveal the truth of heirarchy behind it.
Sam_Bass@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They should be stalking the Repuglicans in Washington. Make a ton of bounty I bet
RymrgandsDaughter@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
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
BigMacHole@lemm.ee 2 months ago
In UNRELATED NEWS in Free Republican States Trans and Gay people are Legally PEDOPHILES!
ripcord@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You can tell they are Free because of all the people they are hurting.
Wolverdiddlyino@lemmy.world 2 months ago
What are ‘Free Republican States’ ?
nomy@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
States FREE from LIBTARDS obviously.
Bzdalderon@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
Genuinely surprised and relived by the amount of common sense in this thread, that’s all I have to say
fluffykittycat@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
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
allo@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
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.
Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 months ago
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
Wolverdiddlyino@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Can we do billionaires next? There is surely a little overlap.
SocialMediaRefugee@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They see them everywhere except in their own home
cupcakezealot@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
paedophiles are horrible people but dateline culture was the worst thing to happen to pop culture lexicon
Ledericas@lemm.ee 2 months ago
they mistaken quite a few people.
blazeknave@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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?
ArchRecord@lemm.ee 2 months ago
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.
ubergeek@lemmy.today 2 months ago
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?
RabbitBBQ@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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…
Killer57@lemmy.ca 2 months ago
I wish I hadn’t gone down this rabbit hole, but according to study data, 1 in 6 people want to touch kids. theconversation.com/a-survey-found-1-in-6-men-adm…
elbarto777@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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 make 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. AHA!!! THREE men out of four would be willing to be slapped for $1000 or less!!!
cy_narrator@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
It should be illegal if they do not call the police afterwards they are done with their personal justice
whodrankarnoldpalmer@startrek.website 2 months ago
Let’s be real- we know who they’re catching. I’m fine with this. Keep on doing whatever to MAGA trash.
snaggen@programming.dev 2 months ago
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.
meyotch@slrpnk.net 2 months ago
This crew also confuses homosexuals with pedophiles, so be careful on Grindr, k?
sharkfinsoup@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
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.
Zak@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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.
pr06lefs@lemmy.ml 2 months ago
real cops do this too, though not execution style.
j0ester@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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 (or Federal) will think they will re-offend or not. Most Level 1’s do not.
whodrankarnoldpalmer@startrek.website 2 months ago
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.
Duamerthrax@lemmy.world 2 months ago
we know who they’re catching.
No. No you do not.
fishos@lemmy.world 2 months ago
“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.
boreengreen@lemm.ee 2 months ago
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.
whodrankarnoldpalmer@startrek.website 2 months ago
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. Feel free to wait around and see how it shakes out, I guess.
Triasha@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You think they are going after Maga? Most of them aren’t even going after pedofiles!
whodrankarnoldpalmer@startrek.website 2 months ago
Sounds like an opportunity, then
rice@lemmy.org 2 months ago
No they stay away from their family members, they’re likely just going after people they hate.
RaptorBenn@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
It’s unfortunate this has to be taken into the hands of vigilantes. But it seems to me a necessary evil.
erin@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Except sometimes “pedophile” actually means “trans person just living.” The right claims all trans people are groomers.
RaptorBenn@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
Obviously, if they’re targeting trans people specifically for being trans, i dont support that. But if they got lured by these guys, doesnt it mean they’re pedo’s?
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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.
NABDad@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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.
AA5B@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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?
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 months ago
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.
Rob200@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
Predator catching channels are important. Should not be censored. Just cause a few channel might had been acting fascist like towards minorities with intention to degrade trans people. Which from many of the channels I seen, they seem to be strictly going after adults going after minors on the internet. If any are intentionally going after just trans people or other minorities just because, they use it as an excuse to harass it’s rare.
Are there even any actual specific channels and videos that even point out that something like this is even happening in these predator catching movements?
I will meet you some of you here. If they are not working with law enforcement and are just harassing people, that is not ok. I’m against this native that’s going against predator catching channels as a whole because it is so out of touch with reality. Instead of calling a whole movement violent, call out the 'specific" offending channel. If you can’t do that, what does that say about your narative.
Anyone that thinks that they should all* be censored, get ready to censor gaming channels and played heavily while you’re at it. Plenty of gamers online said some rascist, and homophobic things. I’m not changing my mind on this.
Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 months ago
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.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Did people not watch The Hunt?
Ceedoestrees@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Is this an angelfire website in the 90’s? Who the hell though 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.
misterdoctor@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Trying to read the text with the insane collage of actively playing videos made me feel motion sickness