[Tom4784]

Originally Posted by Toy Soldier

I know of a group that was shut down (well, shut themselves down) because it did indeed go wrong. They posed as a 15 year old girl online, met up with what they believed to be an adult posing as a 16 year old boy, cornered and confronted him, live-streamed the whole thing to face book...

... Problem was, it actually was a 16 year old boy who happened to be tall and have a lot of facial hair for his age.

And who came from a rather ... Erm... Lively? family. Who tracked down the paedophile hunters and smashed in all of their windows and threatened to kill them.

I understand the motivations of these groups but I think it serves as an example of why these things should be left to professionals. At absolute most, they should just gather information online and hand it over to the police. The physical (and especially the live-streamed) confrontations are just too prone to errors being made.

Yeah, I despise the live streaming aspect since it becomes more about the clout rather than doing good. It basically becomes no different to Tommy Robinson trying to livestream those child abuse trials, it becomes about self promotion rather than bringing predators to justice.

I'm sure I've read about a few groups who don't do that sort of thing though, they gather evidence and turn it in and that's it and I admire those people since they are doing good for the sake of doing good. If it weren't for people like that, I'd oppose hunter groups but while you've got groups that handle things right and never make it about themselves, it's not a practice I can oppose although it often leaves me in a quandary about vigilantism since I oppose it otherwise.