Anti-pedophile activism

In Russia, neo-Nazi activist Maxim Martsinkevich launched the Occupy Pedophilia project in 2012, which targeted men that sought sexual activities with boys on the internet, who would be subject to several sorts of torture and humiliation on camera.

[1] In the United Kingdom, prominent tabloid newspaper News of the World, owned by press magnate Rupert Murdoch, launched anti-pedophile campaign Name and Shame in 2000 that aimed to expose people convicted of sex offenses.

The campaign resulted in several lynch-mob and firebomb attacks occurring in England and Scotland, most of which targeted innocent people who were wrongly identified as child sex offenders.

[16][17][18] Criminology researcher Amy Adler stated in 2001 that public concern regarding child sexual abuse was "a modern phenomenon that has grown significantly over the last two decades".

Such groups have used technology tools to engage in campaigns of public shaming and doxing with the goal producing effects including deterrence, punishment and systematic change.

[6] Actions of citizen vigilantism has resulted in loss of life of some individuals accused of sexual crimes,[3][6] as well as humiliation and psychological trauma experienced by family members.

[22] Jenkins described the concept of "the pedophile" as an elastic social construction that has been represented in varied ways in different times, according to commonly accepted professional wisdom and ideas circulated by the media and popular culture.

The show featured sting operations, set up in collaboration with vigilante group Perverted Justice and law-enforcement agencies, in which men who sought sexual relationships with minors on the internet would be lured into a house filled with hidden cameras, where they would be asked humiliating questions by the program's host Chris Hansen before being arrested by police officers.

The Poynter Institute criticized the show for lacking ethical journalism, stating that "it's no longer a parallel investigation when the cops are basing their decisions to call in the SWAT team on the observations of the journalists".

[26][27] In 2006, Bill Conradt, an assistant district attorney living in Dallas, Texas, was accused of having interacted with a person he believed to be an underage boy, including telephone contact and sending explicit images.

Conradt's death resulted in the prosecutor refusing to indict any other Dateline suspects, citing a failure by amateurs to produce evidence as well as their undue influence on law enforcement.

[30] Following the cancellation of To Catch a Predator in 2007 and the spread of conspiracy theories about "grooming" and child sex trafficking on the internet, several vigilante groups were established in the United States.

[31] University of Winnipeg cultural criminologist Steven Kohm stated in 2019 that anti-pedophile vigilante groups have sought to restore the more emotional, punitive and participatory nature that the American criminal justice system had 100 years prior.

[32] Perverted Justice's Xavier Von Erck said in 2024, regarding modern vigilante groups, that "there seems to be more of a motivation nowadays to expose these guys to enhance an individual's social media stature than there is to build an organization that can work with police and get arrests".

[34] In 2016, a 28-year-old father fired shots at Washington pizzeria Comet Ping Pong after conspiracy theorists falsely reported that the restaurant was the headquarter of a child-trafficking ring.

The episode became the most complained about television piece of its time, with the government signalling intent to increase media censorship and calls being made for Channel 4's license to broadcast being revoked.

[38] In July 2000, prominent British tabloid News of the World, owned by press magnate Rupert Murdoch, began running a campaign titled "Name and Shame", in which the newspaper published the identities and addresses of several men convicted of child sex crimes.

A Greater Manchester man had his home surrounded by a mob of 300 people, who shouted "pedophile, rapist, beast, pervert" at him and dragged a six-year-old child to his door while asking "do you want this one?".

[5] University of East Anglia's law school lecturer Joe Purshouse stated that anti-pedophile vigilantes have "[manufactured] criminality", conducted punishments, and jeopardized their targets' rights to a fair trial.

In some instances, vigilantes would write "Fuck LGBT" or draw the rainbow flag on the foreheads of their targets, who would sometimes also be shouted at, slapped, have their heads shaved or be forced to drink urine, among other forms of torture.

The German newspaper Der Stürmer was often used to fuel accusations of sexual assault of children by Jews, and in some cases implicitly called for violence against the alleged perpetrators.

Instead of targeting individuals who were evidently breaking the law, these groups falsely made gay men confess to being paedophiles and organising meetings so they could be tortured and robbed.

[56] With the popularization of the Internet in the United Kingdom and the OECD, criminal justice procedures against child sex offenders have become more exclusionary and retributive, with the intensification of punishment, the reduction of legal rights and the increase of summary orders and prohibitions.

[60][61][62][63] In May 2023, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that allows the possibility of the death penalty for the rape of a child under 12 years of age, though it will be judicially unenforceable unless Kennedy v. Louisiana is overturned.

[71] Following a series of notorious child abduction and rape cases in the 1980s and 1990s, several U.S. states enacted sexual predator and civil commitment laws, with pedophile-free zones also being established.

The introduction of such laws gave place to debates regarding the monitoring and supervision of registrants, as well as their rights to housing (the legality of which was disputed) and whether such registries should be open to the public.

[76][75][22] Furthermore, the discredited idea that pedophiles can choose who they find sexual attractive, which one-third of the participants of one survey agreed, has also been reported to play a factor in negative and punitive attitudes against pedophilia.

This result is consistent with the core assumptions of attribution theory, according to which the perceived intentionality of a person is positively associated with the assignment of blame against them by the general public.

was founded in Ohio and appears to be active in a number of states, utilizing similar tactics to other groups in running 'sting operations' on online dating and social networking sites or applications.

Lee was well-known online for his aggressive vigilantism, frequently physically assaulting alleged predators, vandalizing their property or slashing tires on their vehicles so they could not leave the area.