Parents are encouraged to be
mindful that an increasingly large aspect of being online is communicating with
others, especially on Facebook. They are advised to talk to their children
about the dangers of being online, and maintain a relationship in which the
children feel confident in telling their parents who they are talking too
online.
UK Police forces were able to
train officers to become Covert Internet Investigators, who were able to
proactively police the Internet by portraying themselves as children. As well
as this, there have been several examples of vigilante groups taking a similar
approach and portraying themselves on social media sites as children in order
to lure sex offenders into a conviction.
The most contemporary example of
this is 33 year old, Stinson Hunter. Hunter is a self-proclaimed ‘paedophile
hunter’ who along with his accomplices poses as under-age children on social
networking sites to catch “online sexual predators”. Their aim is to get the
offender to arrange to meet the “underage child”, where they film their
confrontation with the individual, post it on Facebook, and then pass their
information on to the police. Over the last six years, Hunters group have
secured over 30 convictions.
Hunter uses Facebook to share
videos of the people they have caught, in order to raise awareness and publicly
humiliate.
Matellozzo, E (2012) Online child sexual abuse: grooming, policing and child protection in a multi-media world. London: Routledge
McAlinden, A-M. (2012) ‘Grooming’ and the sexual abuse of children: institutional, Internet and familial dimensions. Oxford: Oxford University Press
NSPCC (2015) What is online abuse?. Available from: https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/child-abuse-and-neglect/online-abuse/what-is-online-abuse/
Interesting read. If only we could say the example given was doing good as a mother the paedophile is the worst of two evils! If people are willing to give up time to groom the internet for these monsters and save children that slip through the safety of their own parents the police should work with them guiding them as more manpower on this can only beneficial. However I do disagree that another person should publicly humiliate another before the law has convicted them this is not time given up to help but to boost one's ego! That's not anyone's say and almost committing a crime themselves.
ReplyDeleteA very interesting piece! Although the idea of the vigilante is a good one, it always scares me when people decide to take law enforcement into their own hands.
ReplyDeleteIve seen loads of Stinson Hunter videos. They're meant to be helpful, exposing potentially dangerous people and warning the public but theyre posted and shared by people who view them as entertaining. ( which they kind of are). Not only do they create a risk because they're untrained, but in some videos Hunter is seen to intimidate and even threaten potential predators, which poses its own problems.
ReplyDeleteI've never heard of this Hunter but as far as I'm concerned he's doing a good job. If only the police could make the connection and actually work alongside him then I'm sure the success rate would majorly increase. This type of behaviour/offence disgusts me and they deserve the humiliation and more. As a parent it's another one of those 'conversations' you have to have with your children. If you're open and honest with them about the dangers out there then hopefully they'd have the common sense not to be fooled by these people. In my opinion, kids are using social media at such a young age and this shouldn't be allowed. There should be an age limit!
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