I am sure everyone remembers the old Facebook lives and videos of people who would pretend to be underage online to bait adults into explicit conversations then facilitating a meet up which would turn into a confrontation.
However, over the last couple of years, from what I have seen online, it has become more than just the odd Facebook group here and there. Instead, there are now Youtubers who have built a career on catching predators. Although I agree with the work they are doing and trying to catch these creeps before they can victimise anyone else, there is one huge flaw with the way the videos are framed and promoted online.
As with any video that gets views, there will always be an obnoxious trend to follow for people on TikTok or other social platforms to replicate in the hopes they will too go viral. This leads to some very shady situations to occur. People who have no intention of calling or working with police have cut corners to then victimise the people who do turn up.
Stay with me here, I am not talking about people who genuinely believed they were talking with a minor and showed to meet up with them, no. I am talking about the people who have had regular conversations with someone that has either told them they were an adult or never mentioned age whatsoever.
Take the case at Assumption university for example, (yes, very aptly named). A student set up a tinder date with an active serving military man and convinced him to come onto the campus. He was then mobbed by two dozen students after there was a message sent into the dormitory group chat that there was a “Predator” in the building. The man was then chased and attacked whilst being filmed for the viral TikTok trend. The police determined that there was absolutely no evidence of the man looking to engage in any sexual activity or conversations with a minor. This led to 5 students being arrested and charged.
This is not just a one off case either. Only a month before Assumption university, 11 teenagers, all aged 16-17, lured not one but two men from dating sites to a local park where they proceeded to assault, harass and degrade them. They were all arrested on assault and battery charges with some catching extra charges for vandalism for slashing the car tyres whilst one of the men tried to flee and another caught multiple hate crime charges after using racial slurs. There was never any evidence that either of the men had arrived to meet with anyone underage. The teenagers excuse, again, was to participate in the “catch a predator” trend.
I am not saying that these youtubers are directly responsible for a trend like this. However, when a mob justice mentality is spread due to online predator catching videos going viral, I feel there needs to be more accountability taken when they actively facilitate hate towards predators in their comments. Working with the police to arrange stings and following the law to actually get predators arrested is something I feel is very commendable and I will ALWAYS agree with. However, promoting the violent or hateful behaviour in their comments will always lead to situations where completely innocent people will get victimised for the hope of a few clicks.
Another issue I found, every single predator catcher I have found on YouTube always promotes their subscription based website where they are clearly making money off the people they have caught. Yes, they need to make money to survive. I understand that. But it always feels dirty and weird to me that they can just casually slip it into a video that talks about such sensitive and disgusting things. This completely desensitizes the behaviour they are trying to highlight to people in the video, and only promotes more stupidity to be portrayed by their viewers. Now not only does predator catching mean virality online but it also means money. This means that people who are not trained, or equipped to handle these types of sensitive situations will give their attempt at it. Not only does this cause dangerous situations for the people in their local area online – people who aren’t looking to meet minors on the internet but have the displeasure of falling into a conversation with someone who is trying to create their perfect viral situation but it endangers said stupid person too.
The predator catching community needs to rethink how they promote and showcase their videos because at the moment there seems to be nobody holding them responsible even though that it what they try to push.
