Anyone who stumbles upon that title out of context will probably say “Oh look, the commies support pedophiles. What a shock.” and they’re free to think that, as wrong as it is. So let me break it down.
In the last few years, To Catch A Predator has had a huge resurrgence in popularity because pedophiles are awful. The one group in America that everyone can agree are bad, now that we’re okay with actual Nazis apparently. When you watch a lot of TCAP, a thought thoughts to burrow it’s way into your mind “If I were there, this sicko would get what’s coming”, so naturally a bunch of amatuers decided to start making their own little predator stings. These usually don’t work because YouTubers are more concerned about making content than protecting kids. The police aren’t involved, a lot of the videos are actually cases of entrapment that aren’t actionable in court, and my personal favorite, many of these YouTubers just beat the shit out the suspected predator for a while. On camera.
First off, I think a lot of those are fake because the liklihood that you can attack already mentally unwell people and not be shot or stabbed is pretty low. But secondly, these videos are a degenerative disease. No one is getting helped, no one’s being stopped because these cases are thrown out, and things are beginning to escalate. I mentioned that a lot of catchers are physically attacking their marks. One instance where this happened a man was shot and killed because he pretended to be a teenage girl and then punched a 16 year old in the face, who shot him in self defense. Things are also getting out of hand in other ways. Recently a group of college kids abducted a guy because he wanted to date an 18 year old, which is both not illegal and not grounds to kidnap someone for clout.
The most dangerous thing about these people is the feedback loop they’ve created on social media. Child Molesters are bad, this is an established fact that everyone agrees on. Police aren’t doing enough (this is partially true but it’s a poor justification). So if you take issue with the idea of guys getting their asses kicked by vigilantes on camera, or that they “accidentally” get the wrong guy, then you’re a pedo sympathiser and someone should go kick your teeth in too. A group of people with no accountability or oversight can just decide your guilt and act on it. Why are we creating a world where someone can call you this or that and then send violent thugs after you?
This isn’t just about pedophiles either, what I’m getting at is that the definition of the “acceptable target” will only expand until more and more people are caught in the crossfire. That kidnapping I mentioned? That’s just the beginning, because that is the logical conclusion of this behavior.
When you consider the right wing in the US considers everyone from male teachers to pediatricians to be pedos just for being an adult that interacts with children, I can see why this sort of thing could be very alarming. It is normalising mob violence against an acceptable target, you’re right that they’ll just expand their targets until they can bring back full on lynch mobs to murder every non-WASP they can get their hands on.
Yeah there’s definitely a fascist vibe to it. Like this desperate desire for mob violence against an acceptable evil.
Wait what? They are abducting alleged pedos for YouTube content? That sounds crazy.
The ones i watched are about luring them to public places and beating the shit out of them, and many were obviously mentally impaired people.
Maybe in Russia, but rarely in the U.S.
what are you implying here lol
I’m talking about how many reich-wing groups in Russia would attack LGBT people and conflate them with pedophiles
Edit: Jesus Christ, this shit is documented.
deleted by creator
I wish
It’s begging to be weaponized against LGBTQ people to push selective cases to push the narrative that they’re all like that, just as the Nazis had regular columns on “Jewish crime” to give the impression the Jews were all criminals. Or to be used as a cover. I think in Russia there were stings for gay people done along similar lines, filmed and they’d often accuse them of being child molesters, of being after kids which was the homophobic narrative there.
It’s a very sick individual-centered, glory-seeking approach to a problem which is fundamentally that capitalist cops don’t invest serious resources in this, are often predators themselves, etc because they don’t exist to protect the citizens but to protect capital. The solution then isn’t these individualist acts of violence and attempts at mob justice but collective action, not for views, not for clicks, not to portray oneself as some sort of hero but to actually tackle the problem. It’s also of course an issue of the family, of the lack of community involvement in each others lives which makes isolating kids easier. But that would require actual work, community-building, effort, it wouldn’t be dramatic, it wouldn’t stoke the egos of those involved, it wouldn’t sell on youtube, so nothing is done.
It already is being weaponized against LGBT people.
One of my former favorite predator catchers turned out to be incredibly homophobic and unrepentant, and even admitted on stream that he edits some of his catches’ chat logs, which tarnishes the good work he did capturing actual pedophiles.
Most predator catchers, even if some of them may or not be in it for “the right reasons”, still do great work, and they always emphasize that they are anti-violence and anti- mob justice, which is why they call the cops or at least inform the police.
It’s the minority that act like douchebags.
Edit: For those downvoting, please say what video you were caught in.
EDIT: I was being way too harsh. I should probably explain myself instead.
This kind of “You’re either with us, or you’re with the pedophiles” kind of attitude is exactly how they normalise anti-LGBTQ hate, by squashing dissucssion and only allowing their particular brand of mob violence. I’m not opposed to pedophiles meeting justice, the problem is, the people making these videos are the ones doing the editing on those videos, and it is very easy to edit things to make someone come off worse than they actually were, and even full on fabric things out of a random soundbyte. If this sort of way of dealing with pedos is normalised, it will very quickly be used to normalise violence against LGBTQ people and other minorities. Making justice into a spectacle or entertainment is what fascists do.
Great, but why are we sensationalising this? Those people getting arrested honestly should be seeing a therapist/psychologist/coinciding, not being lured out and being the content of a show for an endless amount of people to watch. This type of behaviour is somewhat barbaric even if we do not like them, plus someone else mentioned it, this media really eases the manufacturing of consent towards harassing or even arresting LGBT+ people and other minorities
Who is sensationalizing this? Is drawing public attention to something sensationalizing it?
Of course someone seeing a therapist and getting mental health treatment is the ultimate goal/option, but there is no real issue with the public being made aware of AN ADULT TRYING TO ASSAULT A MINOR.
Anyone who says “lured” out or “muh entrapment!” or whatever words to that effect almost definitely need their hard drive checked, but that’s just my opinion.
If someone offers someone else to murder someone and get paid money for it, and then it turns out to be a sting to catch hitmen when they arrest the douchebag, that doesn’t make it entrapment. Same logic here.
People are always going to be shitty or use things as an excuse to attack LGBTQIA people or minorities. That doesn’t mean to not pursue justice or to let evil sit and fester and grow like a slimy, toxic mold. I’m Latino and LGBT, and while I dislike easy answers, I do have this: Fight against those who use allegations of pedophilia as an excuse to enforce white supremacy, go after douchebags who try to hurt children, and get them in therapy and/or prison depending on circumstances, it’s not fucking hard. It shouldn’t be complicated.
99 percent of the time, people whining about alleged mob justice are engaging in neoliberal crackerist concern-trolling mentalities and JAQing off, and look like fucking weirdos for sympathizing with pedophiles.
While I was never molested, I have a very fucking similar experience, which I’d rather not elaborate on.
It goes without saying, that I don’t wish death on people over shit they can’t control, and altruism and peace and forgiveness is almost always the answer.
But anyone who comes to assault a child? They deserve a firing squad. And anyone who uses mental health as an excuse to assault a minor, doubly so.
I don’t give a goddamn shit about any of the chomo-sympathizers here that downvote this. I won’t necessarily die on this entire hill, but I am pretty close to it.
It fucking astounds me that people have a problem with this. It’s pseudo-intellectualism and neoliberal contrarianism.
Hey friend, I read your whole comment and I just want to make it clear I am pretty sure we are way-way closer to agreeing than disagreeing. I am not aproaching this issue from a liberal pacifist mentality, that would be so increadibly stupid and massively dangerous for our youngest members of society. Put bluntly I am NOT consern-trolling.
That being said, there are lots of youtube channels with millions of young audiences watching people hunt down these people. Yeah pedos are some of the worst members of society who need to be handled by the state I totally agree, however where I draw the line is putting these individuals on camera for entertainment purposes. Forget entrapment, thats not what I mean at all (and I agree with your opinion), I mean the idea of going out and hunting vilified members of society on camera and posting it to impressionable audiences because that manufacturs the consent for such actions to occur to ARBITRARILY vilified members of society eventually. Put bluntly again, it invites broadcasting ganghunting culture, and thats I suppose a-ok for pedos since we all agree we hate pedos but it never ends there, the more facsistic individuals in power will use this as an opportunity to put more people on the chopping blocks. There there exist bounty laws in the states for finding individuals who are to be deported. Its only a matter of time before people who enjoyed watching the pedos getting caught are enjoying foreigners getting caught. Afterall, why else are ICE uploading so many videos? I don’t think the audience for hunting pedos and minorities are far away in the US especially as the place has become more fascistic!
I would much much rather let the government deal with the luring and arresting of these fucking individuals behind cameras.
I am really sorry something happened to you or a family member, really I am and I think people who abuse our little ones should be dealt with resolutely by the state, but I just do not think this should be put on camera for teenagers to watch on YouTube.
(Also please let me know what JAQing off is because I do not know what that means)
JAQing off means “just asking questions”. Just asking questions of course isn’t inherently bad, but it’s the rhetorical device that alot of people use, to seemingly find a “gotcha” rather than discussion.
I am slightly touched by your comment more than I expected.
I’m still shocked that lots of comrades here want this stuff to be “handled by the police” especially given how evil and corrupt capitalist police are, and how even police who publicly condemn predator catchers, still praise them in private or take the evidence to court to arrest the chomo.
I hate this idea that just because people liking ICE videos would also like predator hunting videos, somehow means that hunting preds shouldn’t be celebrated or publicized. But I understand the cause for concern and the how the links between these things can ferment fascism.
But after taking a moment your comment and your concerns, I think you have very valid points.
I won’t die on this hill, I still wager that most people who enjoy watching predator catching videos aren’t as racist as Rosen’s bootlickers or wouldn’t support hunting down migrants.
I want to thank you for enlightening me somewhat, even if it tastes bitter.
Pedophile will expand into LGBT people = Pedophiles real easily. They won’t even say they’re targeting lgbt people, they’ll just shout child groomer.
They already do this with trans people. Only a matter of time before we get lynchings again
For better (or worse) I think it’s kinda obvious when specific catchers seem to slander LGBT people as pedophiles, since they admit it. Not all predator catchers are homophobic or transphobic, though.
That piece of shit lawyer had it coming, and took the coward’s way out. Chris Hansen deserves a medal for that, if anything.
The downvotes on this disturb me.
I think saying that they killed the man is pretty dishonest. The man killed himself, the crew were not the ones who did it. You can hardly blame anyone else when he was the one who both brought the crew and police on himself and was the one who loaded the gun and pulled the trigger. That’s not really to comment on any other points brought up though
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
I wasn’t aware this was going on, but your analysis makes sense to me. I could understand an organized community approach to assist in such a thing (“we keep us safe” kind of thing rather than depending on cops who are not doing enough), but people outside of a community and turning it into a business? (Making money off of it on the internet.) That’s just capitalism doing its thing again, isn’t it? And sounds eerily similar to cops who come in from outside of a community to police it, but with even less oversight. I mean, maybe I’m wrong and some of these people are highly focused on their own communities, but if they are, do they really need to do videos? Or do they need to organize and create accountability, so that these things can be stopped before they start?
As for fakeness, I would not be surprised if some of it is. I know there was a period in Youtube history where prank channels were common and it eventually came out that a lot of them were faking them to some degree. But then you have the problem of, not everybody gets the memo and is actually faking. That’s one problem with spreading ideas like this without being sincere about what you’re really doing.
Funny thing about prank channels is that you can tell when they’re fake because the pranksters get beat up. The real ones are all just awkward or nothing happens because real people don’t respond like that.
That’s like not true. Hopefully not
What part specifically?
There are more than enough videos of predators and catchers awkwardly talking, but there are also a lot where predators do respond violently. People doing evil and stupid shit often don’t think rationally
I slightly like what you are saying, but what do you really suggest as an alternative? Most people don’t have as much freetime as they should, and I see no problem with people making money by exposing scumbags, as long as they aren’t nazi douchebags spreading lies and conspiracy theories.
what do you really suggest as an alternative?
I know it’s by no means easy to do, but people organizing in their communities, developing systems of accountability, checking in on each other, learning who is who and what they get up to, etc., will all go way further than a one-off video “exposing” someone, especially since doing so in a sloppy way won’t necessarily result in the person’s imprisonment anyway, much less convince them not to try again in the future. And considering that most victims of abuse are someone the victim already knows, not a random stranger they met through online.
This article also makes a point about directing effort toward prevention: https://slate.com/culture/2025/01/to-catch-a-predator-claimed-to-protect-kids-its-real-goal-was-something-else.html
One of Chris Hansen’s stock questions for To Catch a Predator’s targets is “Help me understand.” Osit has his own reasons for pursuing that question, which is what led him to the show in the first place. But Hansen doesn’t really want an answer to that question, or at least he’s not in the business of eliciting one. After Predators’ premiere, Osit talked about what might happen if the resources and the energy that went into To Catch a Predator and its descendants, let alone its still-widespread fandom, were channeled toward getting potential predators help before they find their victims, rather than trying to stomp them out one YouTube video at a time. But, he concluded, we don’t have a social safety net. Instead, “we have reality TV.”
*Note: the article is referencing a documentary called Predators made about the culture surrounding To Catch a Predator and the approach to it.
I think it’s worth asking, suppose they do expose an actual scumbag, no doubt about it, evidence is plain and clear and nothing could have been forged easily by the person who made the video: What happens after that? The person who is “exposed” is not going to be relevant in locale to 99% of people watching the video, so it’s not like they’ll be able to personally avoid them. The “exposed” person might face charges or they might not and if part of the problem is cops not doing enough, then what reason is there to believe such cops will do more when presented with vigilante scenarios, some of which may get thrown out as entrapment? But supposing all of this goes in a “containment” direction, the person is put in prison, are any resources being directed toward reforming them? Or are they just going to be punished and potentially try to re-offend when they get out? And throughout all of this, is a public humiliation and profiting ritual actually needed to reduce the number of people who could go after a child? Does it need to be seen by thousands or millions (I don’t know how large the viewership of this stuff is) for containment to be effective?
I know circumstances are often far from perfect and I don’t want to give the impression that I think we should be waiting for the ideal world to do anything about problems. But I’m asking these questions because making sure what’s being done is effective in some way is an important part of whether it’s worth doing in the first place. Finding out if it would be better to direct the energy in a different way toward the problem.
Fair points I guess.
agree, the ones i’ve come across are awful. i honestly think its a facade to target mentally impaired people and abuse them.
I wager that most predator catchers that I watch are good or decent people, it’s only a minority that are transphobic or homophobic
don’t think it’s fine to go smacking randos for content because they allegedly got caught texting minors, this straight up insane people behaviour
this is one of the awful ones i’ve seen: https://x.com/jaycarnicomdap
99 percent of the time, no one is smacking random people, and I worry that you are couching for these scumbags that are caught.
Edit: After watching one of the recent clips, the dude isn’t in any real danger.
I saw one where they throw a >10kg pumpkin on the back of the head of some guy, a legit a murder attempt but ok. if you find it ok to do vigilante justice, fine by me, the more chaos inside the imperial core the better anyways.
I think that is too far. I think a moderate punch would be more understandable than a pumpkin that could snap someone’s neck.
CW: violence
well this is what they do sometimes, i imagine they could do worse sometimes since i’m sure they do not publish every “hunt”.
Dads Against Predators (those specific catchers) are racist scumbags as well.
I can’t speak to all of the catchers, but I stress that 99 percent of pedophile catches aren’t based in violence or beating up the predator, even if they deserve it sometimes.
I’m extremely suspicious of people who claim “entrapment!” because catching someone doing a crime isn’t entrapment.
Legally speaking, only law enforcement can entrap someone. And it’s only entrapment when you are coerced into doing something you wouldn’t normally do. Claiming “entrapment!” isn’t a magic get out of jail free card, and it doesn’t make it entrapment.
I have never ever in almost a decade of watching predator catching videos, almost never seen even a single instance where catchers attacked a pedophile, unless the pedophile runs or attacks first, and not even then.
Alex Rosen is on my shitlist. He himself has admitted to being a pedophile, and then covered his ass by claiming it’s a joke.
Despite catching multiple hundreds and hundreds of scumbags, and the vast, vast majority of them being much closer to stereotypical rednecks, he still believes in this “LGBT groomer” conspiracy, and he is a reich-wing agitator and a disgrace to actual hunters.
I have no problem with someone making a living from donations for catching pedophiles, as long as they don’t spout racist and sexist and transmisogynistic conspiracy theories, and they don’t lick cop boots too much.
You gotta do what you gotta do to buy groceries, in a capitalist society.
Edit: Jesus Fucking Christ, that better be bots or neoliberals downvoting me. I’m disappointed and pissed off that people have a problem with justice.
Edit: Nvm already posted
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
