“Paedophile hunters”

[Yellowdaffodilss]

I remember quite a few years ago now, these paedophile hunter’s started appearing on social media. Videos of them meeting people who had been talking to what they believed were underage children. I remember thinking , oh wow they’re out there protecting our children. Maybe a naive view , I don’t know.

But now , more and more , I see it becoming a regular thing and I am seeing time and time again that the so called predators they catch ( not all the time, there are times that they are grown adults knowing what they’re doing ) are very clearly people with additional needs / autism. I find it disturbing to watch - I have seen young adults panicking and not really knowing what they’re doing or the implications . It’s clear that the messages in the videos I have seen are between the “ culprit” and an ‘underage child’ discussing meeting up , when yes they have been clear they are underage but it is also clear that it has not been sexual talk and these people are not understanding that what they are doing is wrong.

I remember years ago my sister and her friend talking to a lad of around 19. My sister and her friend were chatting and asking if the lad liked the friend and he was inviting them around to his house for a sleepover and to watch movies. ( my sister told my mom as she was worried ) I went through all the messages and could see it was not sexual . This lad thought they were friends . I looked at his profile and he was clearly autistic and his emotional and mental age was probably the same as my sister and her friend. I spoke to his mother who was so thankful that I messaged and confirmed he was quite severely autistic.

My son is autistic and always been drawn to girls as friends rather than boys . He also always gets on with those younger because he is on their level more. He wouldn’t even know how to talk sexually - he’s got a very limited understanding. I can’t stop him having a phone , he’s now 18 . Luckily I’m very aware and have spoken to him about this and keep tabs on him but it’s very hard. This kind of thing really worries me.

It makes me think whether these groups are doing more harm than good. They’re outing people publicly , and for those who are vulnerable with no understanding then it could do so much harm. I get that parents should be monitoring phone use but quite frankly not all parents do.

I do also wonder - can charges be made if there is no ‘real’ victim - it’s an adult they’re talking to … I guess it could get the culprits investigated more and maybe find out more things but other than that is it not just vigilante behaviour? And also , is their real good intention there from all of them or is it a case of getting social media famous ? Could it even be that they target those who they can see are more vulnerable as it will be an easy ‘catch’ ?

Woah - I think you have completely misread here . I did not at any point say my son was messaging under age girls ! This post was not about my son, he absolutely is not.

I said that I have spoke to him about these situations and I said someone had messaged him and he had asked their age and they said they were 15 and he said he was 18 and stopped the conversation- showing that he knows it is not right . I said this to show that I have spoke to him and he knows and because of this , he won’t talk to anyone underage he does not know. But what I also said was some don’t have that level of guidance .

My son has absolutely not been talking to underage girls , my goodness .

Can’t be arsed with the “he has (insert condition) so this isn’t fair” idea.

Ultimately, the diagnosis doesn’t matter - it’s the person’s functioning that does. If they’re capable of sending inappropriate content to kids, let them rot. Nobody’s convicting anyone of forming a friendship because they don’t understand social norms, but people who are predatory towards kids deserve what they get, no exceptions.

Yet we have several prisons in the U.K. dedicated to sex offenders…..you don’t get dedicated prisons for burglary/GBH or violent offences or even drugs…..just sex offenders. I can name at least 5 prisons for sex offenders . Fairly sure there’s more

kind of shows the scale of it….and as you will know, they nearly always go on to reoffend and those offences get greater and greater until they wind up in custody serving serious time

Yes absolutely - I’m not talking about those I mean the ones that aren’t , that are meeting thinking they are friends because they don’t understand why it would be wrong . Not all - autism is a huge spectrum - but some are that black and white with their thinking that they know they just want to be friends and don’t feel it’s wrong so cannot understand why anyone would think different.

It’s called theory of mind. Putting yourself in the position of someone else , seeing things from another’s point of view. Something a large amount of autistic people cannot do .

No one is convicting them of that , no, but they are being traumatised by paedophile hunters. Regardless of it all being sorted and found that nothing untoward has been done - the damage to that individual has been done.

It really is. It's such a hard subject to talk about, but it's a massive issue.

What about their families? Is it right that their identity and in some cases, address should be plastered all over Facebook because their dad/uncle/older brother whatever has done this?

They're all fucking muppets and I say that as a mother who has been SAd... The neurodivergent "predators" most likely end up in these scenarios because senseless clowns like this would never have made friends with someone with autism or try to understand and be kind, so they seek friendship or partnership with people of the same maturity... However it's down to parents or social services to deliver moral, sexual and lawful behaviour because there cannot be a grey area of acceptability. If people don't have capacity to live by those rules then social media shouldn't be readily available and public outings should be with support for their own benefit to prevent these situations or worse

JUST TO CLARIFY

I have no concerns about my son. When I said “ it worries me” I meant for people similar to my son ( autistic , younger emotionally ) who aren’t monitored or educated .

I also do not mean that an autistic person sending inappropriate and sexual messages may be innocent - if they are sending sexual messages , they have that understanding of sex then I believe they are also capable of knowing that it is wrong with an underage person. To have that level of understanding of sex and to have the capacity to send sexual messages and arrange to meet , along with being told the age of the person they are talking to … that shows understanding. I’m absolutely not saying that if you’re autistic you can’t be a paedophile.

I am referring to - and a particular video I have recently seen - where it’s the case of meeting up with someone younger with no intention other than being friends and not understanding that it’s inappropriate to make a friend who is a child when you are an adult- then being confronted by a paedophile. I hope that clears up any confusion around the intention of the post.

I don’t think I’ve seen any video where someone is being snared by them because they had platonic friendly chat, even with someone young. It’s always more than that, in my experience.

They were confronted by a paedophile?? So they were a victim?

I have seen a video just like this. The whole chats were there . The predators implied grooming and questioned why this person had invited the child to watch a child’s film at the cinema. When clearly this person was emotionally and mentally younger

I think the “what about the family?” issue should be directed at the paedophile who put them in that situation when they chose to pursue children. The family always gets harassed whether the news breaks on Facebook live or in the newspaper. That’s the doing of the paedophile to put them in that position.

Sorry no I meant a paedophile hunter , I mistyped

I hear you. I’ve had some real life experience of this with my friend and her son who is severely autistic but is now on the sex offenders register after befriending a girl who said she was older than she was on Snapchat and he behaved inappropriately. Really inappropriately. I’m not blaming the child at all, I blame the media that makes this possible. His mum blames herself and I am fearful when parents are so dismissive of SM and the dangers. I am terrified for my autistic son and have limited social media as much as possible but not so much that he’s completely isolated from “friends”. It’s a really fine line to tread. It’s a horrible situation to be in.

I don’t think pardophile hunters would bother orchestrating s sting where it was just innocent chat!! There would be a lot more to it than you were aware of op….. your sympathy sounds wasted

I hate them. I don’t like vigilante justice anyway but these people specifically who do this aren’t doing it to make people safer they’re doing it for attention for themselves and because they love a drama- and often have convictions themselves apparently. I have never made a habit of watching their videos but when I have seen a few seconds they do seem to have been quite a few people confronted who have obvious vulnerabilities- learning difficulties for example. They’re often easy targets. More so when you factor in this all ends up on Facebook live or similar and the internet is forever.

YABU. The impact on the victim is still the same. Autism or not.

I haven’t seen much of it, but those I have haven’t been having innocent conversations.

Op I do understand what you mean, but I don’t think any adult should be having online conversations with children, mainly because it encourages the children to think it’s ok, it blurs boundaries. If a ND adult cannot understand this then there should be no internet access without supervision if this is an issue. In your son’s case he sounds like he’s doing the right thing.

You blame the media?? Not your friends kid who behaved so very inappropriately with a minor? Someone’s child?

It absolutely was, I assure you.

I think what it was here - which is also dangerous - is that it was inexperienced people doing the “sting” , that was evident. I would say a copycat group .

They see these big groups , catching real predators and want that fame . So they throw their net out and get excited , they didn’t get sexual talk but they got an over 18 arranging to meet an apparently underage child and thought that was enough and went with it .

An adult asking a child to go to the cinema is still concerning for the child. I’m not sure it matters how mature the adult is, he’s still an adult.

That said there should be ways to limit SM access to those who cross boundaries for whatever reason. I’m sure there are some adults who genuinely don’t understand, but at the end of the day it’s the child that needs to be protected.

My personal belief is that if these groups truly wanted to get convictions or expose these type of people, then they could hand the evidence over to the police to arrest the suspect. And once a trial has established guilt, then show it far and wide.

In reality they are just a bunch of bullies trying to gain social praise due to lack of purpose in their lives.

Do you have a link to the video @Yellowdaffodilss ? Is it on YouTube or anything?

Innocent chat with a minor (if you’re over 18) can still be considered grooming, even if it’s not sexual. A lot of people forget that.

if an underage person messages you/ your son, his first message should be “sorry, you’re too young” and block them.