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.
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.
Hell, KiwiFarms style tactics is becoming more and more common and mainstream. It’s on Lemmy too.
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.
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!
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.
Absolutely!
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.
You’re clearly missing several possibilities.
…or you do neither of those?
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.
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…
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.
Also, the age of consent in Massachusetts is 16.
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.
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.
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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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.
Why would you expect rapists to punish rapists?
Alright bud, you went too far into angry trolling territory.
Gosh, what .today has become these days…
Cops are well known to be rapists, ignore rapists, and even protect rapists. Not to mention the rampant domestic violence they engage in.
Why would you assume cops have any interests in punishing their cohort?
There’s one in the white house. Why don’t they seem to care about that one?
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.
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.
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.
Yea, all of that is not admissible in court too. And they often end up attacking innocent people, additionally it labels them a pedo so, they instantly get fired, lose their wives, children, friends,etc
Eyup, I remember this one guy this dude found who was insanely guilty. Was not only in a “relationship” with a child, but was trying to get him to do cocaine.
The pedo-hunter who was onto him decided the best thing to do wasn’t to call the cops, but to harass him in a target and make a scene. So much so that the Target staff thought the hunter, not the pedo, was the criminal.
Police were called and they wound up arresting the pedo upon realizing the situation, but due to the harassment, the way the evidence was collected, and all that…
The only thing they could get him on was a traffic violation when the pedo was driving away from the Target.
My advice for people is this - Don’t be a pedo-hunter, while it is noble that you wanna fight back against the cruelty of the world… The truth is you’re going to wind up doing more harm than good unless you know EXACTLY what you’re doing. If you let your anger control how you do investigations, you’re not that much different from the killer cops that butcher the innocent.
Especially since sex crimes are ones where the mere accusation is enough to ruin people’s lives. I should know, I was nearly expelled at my Community College because a guidance consular blanket accused me of attacking a woman at her car. It was luck, a phone call to her boss, playing the autism card, and calling the bluff… asking her to prove the attack, provide witnesses, show me the police report, and she basically dropped everything and apologized when she couldn’t. And I knew she couldn’t, because I do not attack people, Hell, I have the muscle mass of Melvin Junko BEFORE he became the Toxic Avenger, even if I wanted to I’d just get my ass beat.
Later she tried it again over me using a female restroom as a transwoman, thankfully this was after Obama amended Title IX to cover transpeole so I once again had an Uno Reverse card. So I just got a call from her boss telling me to use whatever restroom I wanted and to ignore her.
I don’t know what’s wrong with that person or why she was so hellbent on getting me kicked out of school, but… I think of her a lot, not only because she traumatized me with her false accusations, but because thanks to her, I do know that false accusations do indeed happen, and sometimes they come from powerful people.
i forgot to mention some sites publically will list people who have exposed themselves, or pedos, i assume its a law that allows that, and thats how they find it. i happened to stumble a forum for specific cities, and they have a "pedo-map, like google map destinations.
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 ?
We’re going to have the stupidest of wars on our hands.
Finally, my decades of stupid training will pay off!
One could call them the “Stupid Wars”
“Stupid wars need the MOST attention.”
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.
Yeah I believe the next step in this process is to make the easy jump into hunting all those people expressing ‘Pedo apologia’. Half this thread suddenly is fair game to ‘investigate.’
It’s a bottomless well, really.
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.
And his whole family line supports Nazism
I don’t think that’s true. Half of his kids have disowned him. He has a trans child he says was “killed by wokeness” who hates his guts.
Yeah, got to go up the line of ancestry I guess to find all his nazi supporting family.
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.
But if you saw where this was going and said it too early, this perspective means you’re responsible for people not taking you seriously now!
The Nazis were fascists that looked to create a 1000 year reich and believed the destiny was to birth the master race. Trump et al are not doing this which means they are a different kind of fascist than Nazis. That doesn’t make it better much like being shot with a .308 instead of a .44 caliber round isn’t “better” it just makes it a different kind of harm.
I’d say that the nazi salute on live tv sealed the deal.
If it looks like a Nazi and squeak like a Nazi, it’s a fucking Nazi.
From my reply to another
"Ok? How does that change my statement that they are a different kind of fascist? Keep in mind my point is entirely focused on the ideology part of the political ideology whereas you are talking about a salute. How does an arm motion change the policy goals which aren’t the same as what Nazis support? What policy goal can you derive from an arm motion to begin with?
They are still evil they are just a different kind of evil. Not all fascists are nazis. The fact that one guy did a nazi salute twice doesn’t change project 2025 into something that Nazis would support."
Taxonomy.
- A cat is [animal]
- A dog is an [animal]
The nazi’s did such a good job of distinguishing themselves they created their own (colloquial) taxonomic branch.
So [nazi] could be considered a parent grouping of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party and also potentially a parent grouping for the republicans.
I think they key here is separating the nazi party from the [nazi] category
As you pointed out all [nazi]'s are [fascist]'s but not all [fascist]'s are [nazi]'s
- National Socialist German Workers’ Party were [nazi]'s
- The American Republican Party are subjectively showing enough similarities (both in type and progression) that they get the provisional label of [nazi] as it’s the closest existing definition.
Might turn out that they don’t quite fall in the same branch, might turn out they do. Until then [nazi] is an easy shortcut for describing the types of behaviour displayed.
Even if they were just a direct descendent ( taxonomically ) rather than a sibling of the original nazi party there would still be an argument to claim they were nazi’s
Like :
- animal -> mammal -> cat
- nazi -> nazi party -> republican
Come back in a few years and you’ll probably get your definitive answer either way.
You don’t have to agree with any of that of course, but it does demonstrate how someone might have an opposing opinion to your own.
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.
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.
probably under the guise of attacking lgbtq+ group.
Or very likely make mistakes. Vigilantes is nice in comic books and movies, in real life it turns terrible very quickly.
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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Just prove you’re not a pedo and they will leave you alone.
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.
Good luck proving you’re not anything to an angry mob.
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.
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.
Vigilantism is just a sign that government has become too corrupt to deal with problems effectively.
Or a sign that government is the problem as politicians resort more to divisiveness, hatred, bigotry and scapegoating to capture more extreme voters. Politicians stoke the outrage, inflame some groups against others, call for ending the rights of those they’ve marginalized, and even pardon those who committed treason in the name of fake vigilantism, based on manipulation and misrepresentation
That’s the same as corruption. Corruption isn’t just monetary bribes.
Vigilantism is just a sign that government has become too corrupt
There was a lot of vigilantism during Reconstruction because the government was NOT corrupt.
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.
When the political and judicial systems are riddled with corruption, rough justice might be the only justice for some kinds of crime.
Its just harder to trust and justify clout chasers
If they’re paid by the click, they’re part of the problem, not the solution.
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.
Remember when Musk did it si callously
Great. Just dump anyone you dislike as a “pedophile” and then it’s a free for all.
Hmm, I seem to recall Trump being a pedophile.
They don’t actually care about pedophiles; a lot of them are pedophiles
Yes.
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.
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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.
They should be stalking the Repuglicans in Washington. Make a ton of bounty I bet
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.
