In being dubious about the predator sting videos

[Floogal]

I have seen the original Chris Hansen videos where he confronted online paedophiles many years ago. In recent months I keep getting reels and short videos on Facebook and YouTube of these 'nonce stings'. I am a bit wary of them for a number of reasons.

1. Some of them are obviously fake and done for 'comedy'.
2. It seems a bit virtue signalling and bullying on behalf of the 'hunters' (like the episodes of Luther with the vigilante who made online videos).
3. I often wonder what motivation these guys have. I would not be the slightest bit surprised if some of them were paedophiles themselves.

They are invariably made to boost the ego of the “catcher”, and to boost revenue on whatever platform it’s getting hits on.

It has very little to do with protecting children, in realty it threatens the success of legitimate police investigations.

I get the impression they care about abused children as much as the recent rioters cared about murdered girls, ie they are using them as an excuse to be aggressive and feel important.

These people have no real legitimacy. Best to just hand evidence to the police - the experts and let them get on with it. They also run the risk of interfering with broader police investigations.

I have known paedophile hunters' to have been injured when trapping their prey. That's avoidable. (Encountered in my professional capacity).

Videoing and publishing seems to put them in the place of judge and jury and is often for self agrandisment.

Let's be clear though, people who abuse children are execrable.

I have mixed feelings about them.

On one hand, I don’t like the risks to any potential prosecution by putting it on line. And I think their motives aren’t always as they claim.

On the other hand, there is no way that the police can keep up with the number of men trying to meet and abuse children. And I know that, in theory, they’re innocent until proven guilty, but they wouldn’t be turning up if they weren’t guilty, so I don’t have any sympathy for the men they film.

A lot are criminals themselves, and from the videos I've seen, they tend to go for people with send

The police arnt really doing anything about it in my area they caught one released him pending investigation renewed his bail then dropped the charges they did no investigation didn't take the phones where there is clear messages where he knows her real age where he asks for pictures then when the family complain that he is still harassing her while on bail they tell the family to tell the child to stop talking to him and suggest they "change her number" he was repeatedly contacting her from different numbers so they said they "couldn't do anything" about him breaking his bail conditions he was even caught hanging around her road and the police were unimpressed by the family calling them

The family left the area

I absolutely agree.

This hands down^

I have no empathy for anyone who directly or indirectly harms children but this type of approach also gives zero consideration to the safety and welfare of the family of the person they're targeting who have done nothing wrong. And it could be highly distressing for victims of that person watching the video without expecting to see it and no framework for follow up support in place. Also the worry that if they target someone who is in some way vulnerable they could inadvertently create a really harmful situation. There was a guy who did this in our area, sharing a photo of a man who was approaching children in a park asking them if they'd seen his dog. Turned out the guy had profound learning needs and he saw children as safe as he shouldn't speak to adults and he genuinely had lost his dog. As a result a group of men seriously assaulted him and put him in a coma.

I agree more needs to be done to target men who do these crimes, but ultimately there also needs to be more done by online platforms to take responsibility as well. Children are witnessing graphic pornography much easier and at much younger ages now and it scares me what way that will affect them as they get older

^the monetising the content is actually a really good point as well. It's 3rd level profiteering off abused children. Vile.

I know an sen 'adult' who was attacked by one of these groups. He was going to meet a girl for a tea party. It was obvious from the video he had no idea there was any malice in what he believed was happening. He said repeatedly they are going to have a picnic with tea and cake.

The 'hunters' accused him of all sorts, he was so scared and confused. I taught him as a teen, this happened when he was 26, they made him out to be a rapist and a predator and he thought he was going for a tea party.

He took his teddy and thought she would be bringing hers and they would be playing together. All of this was twisted for the video. He should have 24 hour care but actually got 2 visits a day. The rest of the time he was left to his own devices.

I don't know much about this and don't use social media apart from MN. But someone DH knows through mutual friends (I've never met him as it's just a casual acquaintance of DH) used to do paedophile hunting. His group posed as young kids, I assume on social media on pages where paedophiles chatted and tried to find victims. They'd then arrange a meetup. The paedophile would turn up expecting to meet up with what they thought was the young child they were grooming.

Although the paedophile hunters would turn up and take a photo, they'd also called the police who would arrest the offender. I should add that he doesn't mistake vulnerable people with SENs for paedophiles. He only turns up (with the police) when there's hard evidence. Also add, they never attacked the paedophile. They always had the police come too (to arrest the paedophile).

Whether it's the right idea I don't know but this guy has very genuine motivations. He was raped as a child. He now feels a desperate need to stop other children going through it. Again I don't know if his way of trying to stop it is the best way but he's absolutely not doing it for money or fame. Obviously I don't know the motivations of others who do it.

There was a very popular reality TV show in the US called “To catch a predator” where they literally did this for entertainment! It only got cancelled when one of the guys they featured committed suicide.

Yes who have committed a crime...

There are a few groups that do this, gather proper evidence and contact the police, they don't live stream it as they understand the evidential risks and the impact to innocent family members.
The measure in my opinion is, do they live stream or upload videos before the court case? If the answer is yes, they are bullshitting when they try to say they're doing it to save the children, it is their own ego they are massaging!

Well, that's for the police and courts to decide, not some self promoting criminal vigilante, who does whatever they can for views.

And they do!

So many sex offenders out there, these stings are just tip of the iceberg

The police needs to stop looking on Twitter for non-crime hate incidents for hurty words and actually use their resources on real crimes. This includes cracking down on paedophiles.

Leave this to the police.

Resources resource's

Not unusual to have help from the public....in all areas

You're not wrong. 😂 at hurty words

I think all child sexual abusers should be exposed. SEN or not, if you've committed a crime, I've got zero sympathy if it's live streamed on social media. They shouldn't sexually abuse kids then.

The police don't have the resources to keep up, so the general public step in. Someone's got to do something about it. Fair play to them.

You need to read less daily Mail. The police don't go searching for hurty words but they do have to investigate when the public report hurty words which , on the face of the report, indicate a crime. Like they do all crimes.

And before you start giving it 'they don't even turn up when my shed got burgled" , identifying who posted on social media is often pretty easy, the chances of finding evidence to prove who robbed your shed is very slim and so in real terms very expensive to investigate for little chance of result.