A Twitter beef with Report-A-Pedo

Twitter is awesome and also terrible. There is no way to form a complete argument in 140 characters. And I should probably have known better than to attempt it, but I did, and now it's out there. This argument of mine... skeletal and undeveloped and open for rampant misinterpretation. So, let me back up.

Anonymous has a chapter dedicated to pedophiles. Or rather, the act of ruining their lives and/or sending them to jail. Sounds like something pretty much everyone can get behind. So far, I've supported everything in which Anonymous has elected to intervene. And obviously, I am not sympathetic to, or supportive of people who choose to abuse children, however, one of the groups most recent actions concerns me. When I tried to cram this concern into 140 characters, what I got was a response that more or less made it sound like I was defending child molesters which... well that is totally unfair and really sucks.

They hacked into a man's computer and found... basically a whole shit load of child porn. He's already been arrested (as far as I can gather from Anonymous' document), but has been released from custody until his trial date. So, Anonymous gathered pretty much all this guys major data, and made it public on the internet. Their reasoning being, that everyone needs to be keeping an eye on this man in case he assaults a child leading up to his sentencing. But, so far as I can tell, there is nothing to show that he has ever actually abused a child in real life. Or at least, that was not presented by Anonymous with his information.

The document contains his name, social security number, address, email, all his social media stuff, his job, credit history, etc. And... so what, right? This guy is the scum of the earth. Fuck him. I do understand how that's an easy conclusion to come to. But I am not convinced it was the right one.

Maybe people will show up and wait outside his house to follow him wherever he goes and make sure it's no where near kids. Maybe people will call his house hour after hour to make sure he is securely at home. But if these things don't happen... how does the publication of all his information keep any children safe?

What if he's never actually harmed a child? The legal system had already discovered his online activities and is in the process of handling it as our laws deem appropriate. It is against the law to possess child pornography, he broke the law, and the law is dealing with him. His reputation will be ruined, he'll have felony charges against him for life. So what did Anonymous accomplish here? To humiliate this person further in front of the entire world, and make him a target for identity thieves? Ok, that's fine. I am not claiming to feel bad for the guy. But if this is their course of action every time they discover someone in possession of illegal materials, I think the results they're seeking aren't the right ones. I don't see how that helps.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has a section on Pedophilia. That means that it is recognized as a mental disorder, albeit it one for which no known cure exists. It also means that for reasons we don't fully understand, sometimes people have inclinations towards children the same way some people have inclinations toward other odd, gross or unacceptable things. It is just as bizarre a thought to me that someone could be attracted to animals, yet those people do exist. Just as pedophiles exist, and always have. Given that this is true, we have a few options.

We can arrest them when they do harm to a child, throw them in jail and leave them there, but by then the damage is done. Or we can try to spot the ones who may be headed down that road before they've done any harm and deal with it preemptively. That may mean locking them in a secure facility like Coalinga in California, which is basically a giant state prison for sex offenders. It could mean sending proof of the possession of pornography to the police and seeing the case through to prosecution. Or, it could mean that perhaps you could first send a message to the potential child abuser, to try and solicit help with the bigger problem.

You could make it clear that the jig is up. Maybe it could list resources or places to seek help. It could inform the person that they are being watched and are expected to stop acquiring or sharing the pornography or suffer the consequences, which could then include publication of all personal information. It could even demand that said person turn themselves in and/or work with the police to track down the source of the media. Why not use the knowledge you got through hacking to blackmail an offender into being a part of a bigger solution? I'm not able to state for certain what the appropriate course should always be, but I do think there are better ways to handle the situation than the way this one was handled.

My fear here is this; if we're just outing people who have maybe so far managed to find ways to deal with those urges alone and without actually raping any kids, if we do this without warning them or giving them a chance to do right, are we saying to potential predators that it's better to keep your secret off the internet because Anonymous might expose you? That doesn't stop a pedophile from being what he is, and it may even drive them back out into the real world with real kids if they can't seek to hide in the virtual one.

We do need Anonymous, but we need them to track down the people who are actually committing the crimes of abusing children or filming it. I am not trying to say that I don't think possession of child pornography should be punished... but if you're a person who has stuck to a computer screen in an effort not to harm a child in real life, I also think that should be taken into consideration by the makers of vigilante justice. Perhaps those people can be tapped to help tackle the bigger problem.

Remember that scene in Casino Royale, where M is pissed at Bond for shooting the bombmaker before he could be used to lead the British Secret Service to the larger criminal organization to whom he had been contracted? I feel like that's a fair comparison to make. Would you rather throw the book at one man doing minimal harm, or bring down an entire network that regularly violates our youth?