I keep seeing videos lately of grown men posing as children online and baiting individuals to public spaces and either assaulting them or recording/exposing them for content. While I don’t mind the idea of a predator being outed, the idea of grown adults posing as children online seems unsavory to me. Especially if their end goal isn’t to protect children, and is to provide content for views.
Obviously, being a child predator is wildly immoral and illegal and their actions are not what’s being debated.
Vigilantism is never the answer. In pretty much every case the vigilante has far less noble motivations than they claim to have. Just look at the constant screeching about “groomers” by US conservatives.
It feels gross that child rape is compelling stakes for TV entertainment.
That’s why you don’t like it. Because at the end of the day, this content isn’t being produced to save kids, it’s so you have something to watch on a Tuesday.
This happened to someone I know.
Don’t know the full details, but apparently he ended up going to prison for it even though nothing actually happened, as obviously there wasn’t an actual child involved.
He’s kind of a fuck up, but mostly just kinda stupid and with an alcohol problem.
Is he a predator and therefore one of the most evil people on the planet? I don’t think so.
He’s a fuck up who’s never had success with women, and someone reached out and was kind and interested in him.
idk how to feel about it tbh. I know a lot of people online will just blanket say he’s a monster, but it’s different when it’s a real person you know.
I’ve got a fuck up friend who goes for young women because he is actually on their level. Legal young, but young. He would easily respond to a pretty 15 yo without asking for age.
As a child, I was preyed upon by an adult.
To me, people making content doing this kind of “hunter” shit is vile. The victims are real children, and you’re using them & their pain to fuel your ego and hero complex? For “”“entertainment”“”? And they’re monetizing it?? Disgusting.
If you’re going to be a vigilante, be quiet and anonymous about it. And be absolutely certain about everything that had occurred.
I still wish someone had gone after my abuser, even after all these years. It would have given me peace knowing that they are no longer out there.
The victims are real children, and you’re using them & their pain to fuel your ego and hero complex?
Yeah… this.
Where are these (supposed) “hunters” when the politicians they support starts stripping away child labor laws and/or advocating for the right to marry children?
Yes.
For two reasons.
First: Two wrongs doesn’t make a right.
Second: The police has far more resources to verify suspicions than any vigilante has. The risk of acting on false accusations or bad dats is just way too big. Also if the predator has had multiple victims a vigilante may miss that and never giving all vicitms closure or compensation.
Vigilantism is wildly unhelpful to the proper authorities, at best, you’ve put yourself in a position of immediate escalation with someone who is clearly able to be presumed as capable of heinous crimes of the violent variety, at worst, you’ve spoiled a years long investigation by showing the hand to the target that people have started to catch on to who they really are, allowing them to book it to a no extradition country.
I think it’s immoral in the sense they rarely involve, or bring their cases to police. Yeah, it sucks to get caught for the predator, but he’s still out there capable of harming children.
Vigilantism, by definition, has no accountability. It’s an individual, who could be mistaken, doling out their own interpretation of justice. There are always exceptions to the rule. Sure, posing as a child could illicit attention from child predators, but it could also attract someone who is concerned about the welfare of the (fake) child. I can imagine someone, abused as a child, wanting to reach out and help someone they think is in danger of falling victim to the same. It’s not a huge stretch of the imagination.
However, our legal system is woefully inadequate in addressing the amount of predators out there, precisely because it hinges on evidence of an act that often has none, while going unreported for long periods of time.
I’d say, that if someone is attempting to meet up with a child for the purpose of engaging in sexual contact, and you are alerted to that, you get to beat the shit out of them, but I’d draw the line at recording and posting, just in case you were wrong. Guy gets beaten up, learns a lesson, but if he was innocent, all he did was get his ass whooped.
Yeah I don’t like it. In the same way that I don’t like people filming themselves giving money to homeless people.
Look into the Snowtown Murders for a true story about vigilantes who profess to want to kill pedophiles. It doesn’t end well. Only actual idiots truly believe violence is how things should work, and you really want smart people to be the arbiters of justice to the greatest extent that is possible.
It leads me to believe that the people setting the traps have a hero complex and they’re most likely going to get themselves hurt or another person hurt at some point or another
Would you rather children be used as the bait?
That’s a false dichotomy. I’d rather they not have to do it at all.
While I don’t mind the idea of a predator being outed, the idea of grown adults posing as children online seems unsavory to me.
It’s what you said.
Kill people. If anyone asks, those people were pedophiles.
No
It’s the same as seeing a person rob an elderly person in the street, and kicking the shit out of them.
If they didn’t rob the person or have a sexual conversation with someone who might be a minor, there would be nothing to expose.
I guess that is one way to look at it. They never actually talked to a minor, just were led to believe they did. Still scummy fucks, but technically never committed a crime in that instance.
Have any been taken to court? That would seem like an awkward case to make. Among other things, they’d have to prove the victims, who may themselves have no previous charge, meant to attempt what the other side says they were trying to do, all while trying to justify themselves. And in the long term it may be too ugly to not look down on.
