I stumbled upon this gif on Imgur:
Businessman, 55, who told a '15-year-old schoolgirl' he wanted to be 'her first' BEGS paedophile hunters not to 'destroy his life' as they snare him after months of grooming
And there're many more videos of paedophile hunts you can easily find on YouTube, all of which are created by vigilantes who have taken it upon themselves to carry out justice:
This is a good thing right? These perverts need to be caught and put away in jail. We need to save all kids.
Right?
Well... Of course keeping our kids save is of the utmost importance.
But shaming paedophiles and conducting our own witch hunts? Not really a good thing.
Paedophiles and child molesters are two entirely different categories
Paedophiles are psychologically wired such that they're attracted to children.
But they're good people who know it's wrong to do anything related to carrying out sexual relations with a child.
They hence don't do anything. They do everything it takes to control their urges.
Child molesters are the ones who have crossed the line and hurt a child.
Paedophiles have nowhere to seek help and rehabilitation
Simply because the minute they expose who they truly are, society and the authorities will condemn them.
Thus, we have these videos of vigilantes carrying out the witch hunts themselves.
Vigilantism is rarely a good thing
More often than not, vigilantes are emotional and carry out justice for the sake of revenge or hurting supposedly bad people only, not because they want the greater good to prevail.
Maybe nothing would have happened at all if no one was out there baiting
If the vigilantes didn't create the bait, then maybe nothing would have happened at all and no one would have been the wiser.
Why? Because as said, there're paedophiles who don't act out their urges.
The vigilantes did everything they could to lure them out.
Ask yourself then, how much bad is there in many people out there in the world today, but none of it manifested? It could be your close friend or a family member. Are they good or bad people then?
Think I am the only one with an unpopular opinion? Check out some of the comments of the post:
Paedophiles bring the views, especially in today's age of the internet. If they want to make the world a better place for children, why not hunt rapists? Murderers? Druggies?
Re: Wired that way. They can't help it. But again, not all act on it.
Intricacies of the legal system which I don't understand fully myself, but it accentuates the idea that vigilantism, one which is recorded or streamed live isn't a good thing.
Different nations, different laws. Who is truly good or bad and where?
Bait them into getting help instead. Some food for thought.
Convicted by accusations only. It's unfortunate that many of us think that way; use the internet for that purpose.
And lastly, this. I love this quote.
Sometimes the system doesn't work. Sometimes the authorities fail us. Sometimes nothing can be done.
But that's the reason why a system needs to be worked upon instead of allowing others to take things in their own hands.
What do you all think?
It is a real touch subject and I had previously saw that Vice documentary about the guys pretending to be younger boys and girls.
"Maybe nothing would have happened at all if no one was out there baiting"
I agree with this for the most part. Even though authorities or these vigilantes typically don't make first contact they will hang in a chat room or something posing as a teenager. Then when these guys pass their better judgment and start talking to them I think it feeds into their mental issues with the whole situation and it suddenly becomes like giving a meth head more meth.
A lot of these vigilantes are popping up in a lot of major cities and honestly I think the only good it does is maybe get the paedophiles to possibly think twice knowing citizens and authorities could be on the lookout. Oddly enough some of them are still not able to overcome their issues with it and just stop what they are doing. It is very strange.
There was a popular show on for years here in the United States where they did these sting operations and then confronted the guys on TV. There were a couple of suicides that resulted from it and ultimately it went off the air but it was almost like it didn't slow these guys down. It is hard to say.
And like you said people really can't seek help in the situation because by admitting to the problem they could land themselves in jail. On top of all that like you mentioned as well the age of consent and all that is so different in different parts of the world. Even in the united states different states have an age of 16 some are 17 and some are 18. One time I saw one of those shows and they busted a kid who was 19 trying to meet up with a 14 year old. Dude shouldn't have been trying to meet up with her but ultimately they never did meet and the line was pretty blurry with that one in my opinion.
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"a meth head more meth" Precisely!
When I watched the Vice documentary I honestly cringed at the dude himself and not at the paedophiles. Something just didn't sit right with me the entire time throughout. He also admitted to being sexually taken advantage of when young. It was obvious the entire operation was an emotional one for him.
The show was Deadline wasn't it?
I think if these vigilantes really dare to make a real difference, they should go into the deep, dark web. I read some shit on it and THAT shit is the real hardcore, evil destroy-your-faith-in-humanity things going on today.
These hunts are like nuclear bombing their way through a war. They will probably eliminate the so-called evil in the area, but humanity is also wiped out.
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When I watched the Vice Documentary I thought they did a really good job with it because you sort of asked yourself why he was spending all that time with it. Then towards the end it made more sense but I tell you what I was uneasy about. When he was doing the little boy voice talking to these guys. It was just tempting these guys more and more.
Clearly the dudes need help and are fucked up in the head but it certainly is a very fine line on what these vigilante’s and law enforcement for that matter are doing. Because they will be saying "What do you want to do to me?" And then the perv will get tempted even more.
Yeah the show was Dateline NBC with Chris Hanson. It kind of became a long running joke on South Park and other shows.
The one crazy thing I think we could see from that show and other stuff like this is that even otherwise professional people were passing their better judgement to try to meet up with the supposed kids. That was pretty shocking. One of the question marks that I always had with it is they would often act like they used a picture of a girl that looked younger.....etc but that was actually over 18 when talking to those guys. That is messed up really and then also talking on the phone. They would have someone over 18 working with the cops pretending to be younger.
The lines are sort of blurry kind of like "public intoxication" or Driving While Intoxicated. Like in Arizona it is a no tolerance state so even if you blow a 0.01 and the cop says you were driving bad then you could be really screwed and get your license suspended. But in reality it is like you are in trouble for something that might have happened that would be bad.
Again another blurry line because we can't have people driving around drunk and high as fuck and we can't have pervs trying to meet up with 14 years old.
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We won't ever know how another human and their issues truly feel. No one is a mind reader.
The baiting to me is wrong because it messes with their already messed up head and the sole aim is to kill, not help.
The paedophile, when baited by the dude pretending to be a 12 year-old, may have shifted from "I can't do this! It's wrong!" to "Maybe just this one time. The opportunity has presented itself."
And then, already fucked in the head, they come up with the rationale that things will be fine, perhaps like, "Maybe this kid knows what he/she is doing and is actually more mature than most adults in today, and most adults today are fucked up."
That alone kind of sums it up: "Most adults today are fucked up."
No one can argue with that.
I find that the vigilantes are lost in their own irony. Sorry, but any adult pretending to be a kid for whatever purpose is messed up.
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Yeah I agree with what you are saying. It suddenly makes an easy path for someone who is messed up in their head to justify it just for that one time or something like you said.
I remember having a conversation about this with someone back when I was 21 or so because that Dateline NBC show To Catch A Predator was on and we were even like WTF about some of the show. For instance in certain episodes the would usually let the guy walk back out of the house and then the cops would arrest him and sometimes the guy wasn't running or anything and the cops would just full on head tackle the guy to the ground like he had a machine gun or something. A lot of the stuff they were doing was sort of borderline in my opinion and then some of the stuff was just over the top aggressive instead of just calming putting him in hand cuffs and putting him in the cop car.
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It's all entrapment. And that's just too grey an area.
I'd probably only err on side of safety in a war zone.
But in today's society? Not very necessary.
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I agree. A lot of it is entrapment.
There is all kinds of weird stuff that happens here like that. In college there would be young cops that would sneak into college parties and try to hang out and then bust underage drinkers. How lame.
Here is an article about how one cop worked at Burger King for 2 months just to bust someone with 5 grams of marijuana.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/undercover-operation-burger-king-marijuana_us_57ee7b91e4b082aad9bad66b
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Touchy topic, but if the pedos fall for the bait then they are likely to offend anyway.
I agree that many of the vigilantes out there hunting them are often doing it for the views, it's easy gains when 1000s of people want to view that stuff.
But the pedos don't deserve kindness if their intent is to hurt. If the police aren't acting on information then I see no harm if people want to hunt them.
If the pedos do want to seek rehabilitation then those services certainly exist. And can be sought out.
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We can never tell since we can't read minds.
To play on the safe side is one thing, but to start a witch hunt with the aim of solely to destroy and never help is another.
I guess we will never know. It's just too touchy a topic.
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