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.
-
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 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.
-
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 assime.cops have any interests in punishing their cohoet?
Wow, such a "hot" take. No wonder people are afraid to seek help, moron.
-
This post did not contain any content.
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.
-
This post did not contain any content.
There's one in the white house. Why don't they seem to care about that one?
-
I monitor far-right groups pretty intensively and a good chunk of Paedophile Hunters are key organisers of said groups.
Its also not uncommon for far-right groups to be family operations where the adults will groom their teenage children into organizing and encourage their children to date other, often older, fascist organisers.
Look at how much conspiracy content especially after 2016 focused on pedophilia. A lot of it. That carried over into this
-
This post did not contain any content.
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...
-
Oh. They're just gonna call people pedo and attack them even though they're not. It's extremely obvious.
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. -
Wow, such a "hot" take. No wonder people are afraid to seek help, moron.
Victims are afraid to seek help in the US, because "the help" usually re-victimizes them, and protects the perpetrator.
It's not because of me stating as much...
-
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.
-
This post did not contain any content.
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 monitor far-right groups pretty intensively and a good chunk of Paedophile Hunters are key organisers of said groups.
Its also not uncommon for far-right groups to be family operations where the adults will groom their teenage children into organizing and encourage their children to date other, often older, fascist organisers.
Unsurprising as most of the "pedophile hunters" are extremist by nature, so it makes sense why they would also subscribe to extremist ideologies like Nazism and queerphobia.
-
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.
-
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"
They caused the death of a victim before: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2025/apr/01/us-officials-challenge-ofcoms-risk-to-free-speech-caused-by-online-safety-laws
-
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.
-
Solution bait the baiters
Practical solution, abandon all social interactions with strangers
I'm way ahead of you in my basement of solitude.
-
Where is this civilized society at, in the US?
More democratic areas I'd say.
-
Ah that's the thing, we're not civilized
We're about to have roving gang of Nazi vs pedos! Just attacking each other like crime gangs in the streets.
This is what about when young people have no future.
We're definately less civilized than we used to be but there's still some degree of civility.
-
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.
We’re going to have the stupidest of wars on our hands.
Finally, my decades of stupid training will pay off!
-
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.
-
Do you have any argument as to why this matters, in any way, at all?
the majority of the population doesn't identify this as being nazism. If you are looking to get more people backing your cause you cannot alienate them by appearing to be reactionary or uneducated.
So your argument rests not on truth but on populism.
Even if you're right in your wholly unsubstantiated claim, the way to get more people on your side is by persuading them, not by capitulating to their ill-informed beliefs. Giving in to their bullshit is how you join their side.
I would love to know what your media diet is.
