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Does vigilantism and baiting child predators seem immoral to you? (lemmy.world)

submitted 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I keep seeing videos lately of grown men posing as children online and baiting individuals to public spaces and either assaulting them or recording/exposing them for content. While I don't mind the idea of a predator being outed, the idea of grown adults posing as children online seems unsavory to me. Especially if their end goal isn't to protect children, and is to provide content for views.

Obviously, being a child predator is wildly immoral and illegal and their actions are not what's being debated.

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[–] [email protected] 42 points 4 months ago (2 children)

The question is, would these people be predators if people didn't bait them into it? If they are doing this for "content" or some sense of moral judgement, then they have an incentive to push people into these things more than they originally would.

I can imagine the following scenario being common (to the point at which I wouldn't be surprised if there is a tutorial for it somewhere):

Find someone online who has serious mental health problems or cognitive impairment.
Emotionally manipulate them into saying or doing something nasty that they wouldn't otherwise do.
Invite them somewhere public and humiliate then online for content.
Congratulations! Not only have you managed to ruin someone's life, you've done it in a way that you get to feel morally superior as well.

Target some marginalised group as well, and you can also justify hatred towards them and show everyone that your group is better!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago

The question is, would these people be predators if people didn’t bait them into it?

The CIA has been doing this ever since 9/11 - "baiting" cognitively impaired people into doing "terrorism."

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 months ago (1 children)

A lot of the people they bait do not seem as if they are cognitively competent

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 months ago

THAT is different. Bullying a mentally disabled person is the wrong thing.

The caregiver for the person should be involved in their online activities if they are vulnerable. They should also be taught about being safe online.