Jezebel 
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New York, 7:21 AM
Tue Dec 22
55 posts in the last 24 hours
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11/04/09
And yet that is the entire point of the law - to keep people like me from punishing douchebags solely because he is a douchebag.
Man, this is why I like ethics so much more. The standard for behavior is so much higher. Even though an argument could be made that he was within his legal rights, very few would say what he did was ethical. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
Deery said, "You brought three condoms, one for me and one for each of the girls."
"They come in packs of three," he told her. "You can’t buy just one."
I mean, I could imagine just screaming "Fuck fuck fuck." over in your head when you realized how that would be seen by everybody. #onlinepredators
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I briefly got pretty much addicted to Internet porn when I was in junior high school (whole 'nother can of worms), and while I never was much one for the online chatting, I did it once in a while, and I remember vividly talking to a guy once where I got it into my head to pretend to be ten years old. Lord knows why- maybe he had said he was into younger girls, and I wanted to push that idea even further?- but I recall his discomfort with it (and probably curiosity at the incongruity of a 10-year old girl with a way too advanced vocabulary, spelling w/o a trace of chat-style shorthand, and supremely fast typing). I'm sure now he probably thought I was an undercover cop. But I definitely found it exciting/taboo/thrilling, and now, as an adult, I still occasionally entertain ageplay fantasies.
I don't think I really have a point with this story except that . . . yeah. Kids can have some pretty crazy sexual things going on in their minds, and in any online chatting I did, I always realized that it was meant to stay online and never cross into reality. #onlinepredators
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1. There are very nearly a bajillion girls who are willing to go on webcam and do sexual things, though their limits for what they'll do vary.
2. Most of this is on public sites where they're getting instant feedback from guys as they go. The rest are of the "Well I just sent it to my boyfriend who says he'll love me forever because he's my Edward and I'm his Bella" variety. Sigh.
3. Nearly all of these videos are recorded by the collective denizens of the internet, with many of them finding their way onto 'mainstream' video clip sites that mix soft porn with your usual CollegeHumor antics.
4. Unless the girls themselves say so, there's basically no way to know the ages of the girls involved, except with one's own best judgment (of a blurry webcam photo). Given that there's no identifying information tacked onto these videos or a means of contacting the girl in question, I imagine a girl would have to look significantly under 18 before a video moderator on one of those video clip sites would proactively pull it. From what I've read about how those sites operate, they're not super-geniuses, just people with massive workloads doing a five-second 'rule of thumb' glance at each video to see if it's obviously bad.
For all the easy controversy whipped up over teen 'sexting', the direction of webcam technology is what parents should really fret about. Sexting at least carries with it a trail of numbers, an 'outbreak' that can potentially be contained; Thanks to 4chan, the lowest common denominator of the internet, once a video's out there on the web, it's basically going to exist forever.
If I ever have kids, my future computer will include a mic if they want to use skype, but definitely no webcam. I fully accept that my future kids will feel the need to make their own stupid teenage mistakes, but I'd like to keep them from making one that'll stick around on the internet forever.
But hey, actual, legitimate fears of what your dumb kid will do on the internet that have a simple solution (ditch the webcam) don't make Chris Hansen rich off of America's prurient interests. #onlinepredators
11/05/09
Otherwise, nope, nope, nope. #onlinepredators
11/05/09
On-line solicitation of a minor for a sexual purpose, that is, with intent to commit a sexual activity with that minor, is one of the most investigated and targeted activities by both federal and state law enforcement in this day and age. The "on-line solicitation" as it is known as, is usually in the form of contact by electronic mail (e-mail), instant messaging, or other use of the Internet.
The contact with a minor (underage person), often a male contacting an underage female, becomes a violation of state and federal law when the conversation turns to content of a sexual nature to the extent that it appears that the contacting person is communicating in a sexually explicit manner with the contacted person....
However, the person making the on-line communication may be prosecuted even if he does not follow through with contact with the minor, but rather merely communicates in a sexually explicit manner. Also, persons can be prosecuted here if they forward sexually explicit material to the minor.
[www.teakelllaw.com] #onlinepredators
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11/04/09
A responsible and healthy human being, upon hearing someone's fantasies that include child molestation, has a responsibility to seek help for an obviously disturbed individual.
At the very least, the human being should have some guts and tell the mentally sick individual that such fantasies are disturbing and the person should seek mental help.
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No sympathy. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
Clearly these men have problems, but I'm not sure the practice of netting them is on the up-and-up. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
It's one of those clarifying moments- thank God we jailed him up. Because if we hadn't, he might have gone out and molested Bart and Lisa, or other yellow cartoon children with four fingers! Our cartoons are finally safe from being exploited in this detestable way.
There are so many real children being horribly exploited who need help. Not the Simpsons. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
If there are real dangers and real minors that's one thing. These arrests because a guy was thinking about having sex with an imaginary person who was described as a minor are problematic. #onlinepredators
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I used to hang out in chat rooms when I was 14 or so and I got propositioned a bunch. I actually tried to cyber with a dude in his 20s, but I didn't really understand it, so I was just typing really lame sexual shit into the keyboard and waiting to see what he typed back. Yeah, I was a smart one. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
The whole Chris Hansen/Perverted Justice operation makes me kind of queasy--partly just because of the weird, exploitative "entertainment" value (both of the show in general and on the part of some of the decoys), but I do wonder about the real good. It's interesting to me that Julie Posey has criticized it (and been abused for her efforts.) #onlinepredators
11/04/09
I've just never understood why anybody would need to watch more than a few episodes of it . . .
I think people were shocked by the tastelessness of the "Pedophile Gladiator" spoof:
[www.bestweekever.tv]
But to me, that's pretty much how I view "To Catch A Predator"- turning something horrendous into entertainment, albeit in a format that allows viewers to feel good about watching. (Mind, I'm not dissing Perverted Justice itself, just the televising of it).
I dunno. Something about it always feels "off". We don't have the public punishments anymore, so you flip on the TV and watch Chris Hansen grill a dude and get to feel righteous. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
That being said when I was young I was harassed online by a sexual predator, I didn't tell anyone and nothing happened other than he wrote some obscene stuff and I messed with him out of boredom but he eventually got caught by the cops who called my parents since I was in his chat logs. So THAT was fun.
Why do the police do stings where they have a person pretend to be a grown up? That seems idiotic. If a person wants to have sex with a child PRETEND TO BE A F-ING CHILD, don't pretend to be a mom willing to pimp her kids. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
Also? The police are pretty damn disturbing. Let's not forget who proposed this "Have sex with my kids!" concept . . . #onlinepredators
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Unless it's the rape of a woman. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
Obviously I need to think about this more. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
Also, they only show the people who got caught. Plenty of scary individuals haven't been. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
That just boggles my mind how people can instantly turn off sympathy for a woman the moment she turns 18. I don't think there's a point in our development when we become mature enough to not be affected by sexual assault. But that's exactly how society treats women. People are only outraged and shouting for action when assaults are especially gruesome, but the thousands of women who are raped each day gain no sympathy and sentences for offenders are pathetic. But how often do you see religious and family values groups shouting for tougher sentences for people who assault grown women. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
Sentencing is curious, too. Here in my state we had a recent manslaughter case where the guy who shot someone got 9 months in prison. And I know personally of someone who did something inappropriate with an underage girl (I don't know what, but I know it was not forced), and he's in prison for four years. Both things were wrong, but that's quite a difference in sentencing. #onlinepredators
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Me and every other person whose sexual abuser has gotten off without punishment disagrees. Would you believe the judge actually tossed my rapist's case out? #onlinepredators
11/05/09
But I still think that detectives trolling chat rooms and posing as underage girls is probably not the best use of resources. #onlinepredators
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And yes, like others said, the guy was not exactly just saying shit. He was doing shit, too. #onlinepredators
11/04/09
It's such a difficult line to draw - where does it go, and how hard is it? When do we try to preemptively remove a dangerous person from society? When is it infringing on rights? No one wants to think someone is a child molester and then have it confirmed, but you don't want to lock up anyone who hasn't actually done something.
I don't really know what to think. :/ #onlinepredators
11/04/09
The discussions here remind me so strongly of the McMartin Preschool scandal and the satanic ritual abuse hysteria. People meant well there to and were trying to protect children from being abused, but they ruined the lives of truly innocent individuals for nothing, for chasing after ghosts in the darkness. This guy is obviously a creep and an asshole and a pervert, but is he a child molester?
I don't know either. #onlinepredators
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I do not believe it is.
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