I don't know, what do you think, Moldova?

vockins wrote:

Dr. Venkman wrote:I have no problem, constitutionally or otherwise, to protect kids from rapists first and ask questions later.

That's funny you say that, because the first thing I noticed when I saw the show in question is that it provides a road map to kid fucking for a marginally intelligent pedophile.

Yeah, I'm sure that they had no idea how to use a computer before this show.

Don't get me wrong, I think the show itself is garbage and the host is a douche. I question the ethics of the network, sure. But once again, this thread is not about the show itself, rather the method. Whatever works.

And they post the sexually explicit chat logs that only a horny pedophile would want to read. Why would they cater so openly to such interests, if they were trying to prevent pedophilia? It looks like a case of really bad judgment at the very least.

...Or is it because they're trying to make money and gain publicity off it? If that's their goal, then wouldn't it be an obvious tactic to call up the TV station and pitch their idea to get on national TV and draw more money and publicity to their cause?

BTW, the Perverted Justice folks started doing it before the police got into the business. They pioneered the technique. Talk about entrepreneurship. The first time I ever heard about this company was years ago, on Oprah. The main story was about a high school girl who was a lonely outcast, so she made friends with a guy on the Internet and then started developing a "relationship" with his affected persona, then freaked out when she went to meet him at a hotel and he turned out to be a bald, fat 50-year-old man.

The thing is, the guy did not rape her. When he saw how disinterested she was, he told her to go home. She went home and cried hysterically to her parents, so they called the police and the guy got arrested. After the commercial break, Oprah introduced the Perverted Justice website and did a story about them, all the while hyping the notion that "this could be happening to your child every time they use the computer!"

Sorry, but it just doesn't ring true to me for some reason. I don't believe there are legions of willing kids out there in chat rooms all over the Internet, just dying to get it on with a middle-aged man.

Colonel Panic wrote:Show me some statistics that it's a serious threat against innocent children, and I'll agree with you.

To me, it all looks like a bunch of hype.

Ten percent of child sexual abuse cases are committed by a stranger.

Ninety percent are committed by people the children know.

To help folks process that a little further, somewhere within that ten percent is the Internet Pedophile category. So less than ten percent of child sexual abuse is committed by someone from the Internet.

On an unrelated note, in terms of this conversation not being about the show, if you read that Goddamn Esquire article and watched the Charlie Brooker clip you'd understand that the show and the "volunteer group" and this cop practice are inseperably intertwined, to the point where some counties went ahead and deputized the Perverted Justice folks in order to get around a law that says stings cannot be conducted by anyone except law enforcement officers.

Johnny C wrote:

Colonel Panic wrote:Show me some statistics that it's a serious threat against innocent children, and I'll agree with you.

To me, it all looks like a bunch of hype.

Ten percent of child sexual abuse cases are committed by a stranger.

Ninety percent are committed by people the children know.

Well, Johnny. If you're so high on the numbers angle, give us some real numbers. What's ten percent constitute? 10,000 children? 20,000? Per year or what? You're the expert, so let's have it.

How many children have to be raped, in your humble fucking opinion, to constitue an offensive strategy? Put a number on it, statistic boy.

I got a number for ya. 1.

I read an article about this operation that explained that the because the arrest takes place in a different jurisdiction than the one in which the original contact was made, legal loopholes make prosecution of most of these cases impossible.

fat_frog_138 wrote:I read an article about this operation that explained that the because the arrest takes place in a different jurisdiction than the one in which the original contact was made, legal loopholes make prosecution of most of these cases impossible.

They have since figured that out, these dudes are all getting 6 or 7 years in prison now

Dr. Venkman wrote:How many children have to be raped, in your humble fucking opinion, to constitue an offensive strategy? Put a number on it, statistic boy.

I got a number for ya. 1.

Yeah, zero tolerance. I know that song. It strikes a strong chord in the minds of rabid reactionaries the world over. Maybe we ought to adopt the legal tradition of countries like Saudi Arabia, where hand amputation is the punishment for petty theft?

So are you saying if you told somebody on the Internet--in jest or whatever--that you wanted to kick the shit out of them, then you meet the person in the real world (but make no explicit move to attack them), you ought to be accountable for your words and arrested for attempted aggravated battery? What if that person doesn't really exist, but is (like NerblyBear or Clocker Bob) just a sock-puppet, or figment of somebody's imagination created simply for the purpose of getting a rise out of people? Should you be arrested and charged with a violent crime? Is that how the legal system should work? Or should it work that way for sex crimes, but not serious violent crimes like battery or murder?

If I were to threaten to kill somebody online and then go to their house, I would expect to get charged with trespassing or harassment, but certainly not attempted murder. There's no way that would stick unless I were to actually show up with a weapon or take action of some kind (beyond merely traveling to their location).

Johnny C wrote:Ten percent of child sexual abuse cases are committed by a stranger.

Ninety percent are committed by people the children know.

To help folks process that a little further, somewhere within that ten percent is the Internet Pedophile category. So less than ten percent of child sexual abuse is committed by someone from the Internet.

Well I'm curious to know what proportion of that 10% are actually random cases of peeping/leering/indecent exposure or whatnot, which comprise the vast majority of sex crime convictions.

If online predation was such a potent threat, then you'd think that the explosive proliferation of the Internet during the mid-'90s and the early '00s would have precipitated a huge spike in the number of child-related sex abuse cases. However, sex-related offenses actually declined drastically between the years of 1993 and 2003.

This whole practice is based upon sensationalism and scare-mongering by the media, coupled with a hyperbolic sense of public outrage against sex crimes and a lack of understanding/fear of the Internet in general.

Why don't we set up a benefit show for all the innocent would be child rapists caught up in this dastardly law enforcement trickery?

Maybe we can get some speakers from NAMBLA to introduce the bands

Dr. Venkman wrote:Do you believe that removing these people from the street does nothing to prevent these crimes from happening?

Well, considering that they weren't doing it until the police goaded them into it, I'd say it creates crimes rather than preventing them.