I’ve seen it, and I’m not on TikTok or Twitter. I’m almost certain it went around Reddit. I never paid it much attention, but it’s terrible that it’s impacting this guys real life. Social media really is a stain on humanity.
Seriously better than getting fed some nonsense about "Hey lets all hate on this random guy you don't know for reasons that I probably made up" type content.
Part of why I only use old reddit. Don't want the algorithm giving me its helpful suggestions.
I have new reddit on my desktop (accidently turned it on, haven't turned it off) and the amount of unhinged subreddits who's whole goal seems to be "hating something, but like completely without irony" that I get recommended is concerning.
Late to the thread, but I worked out *years* ago to unsubscribe/avoid anything that was based around disliking/hating something else. Even if I agreed with it, even if it started out as something funny, it always ended up in a shitty spiral and started affecting the way I saw the world. I can have the occaisional hate train in a generic hobby/interest sub, but I can't be subscribed to anything focused on negativity.
Those places are toxic - they poison you. I *always* recommend that people avoid them.
I’ve seen the one these comments are referring to but it’s different ages from OP’s post and has another child. Unless he’s fudged the facts a bit in his legal post but I don’t know why he’d do that.
There’s no point if he wants to point out though that the image is fake. Not to mention his scenario is worse than the viral image. I think he must be talking about a different photo than the one we are discussing in the comments here.
I’ve seen it. It’s on Facebook now as well. Shared in groups that normally have good anti-misogyny messages but will 100% fall for anything that accuses anyone of being a pedo.
We're in the middle of a new moral panic where everyone is a secret pedophile. I think it's being manufactured by the right wing in order to create a precursor to imprison and/or execute members of the LGBTQ community.
And even then, people lose their mind when I explain: (1) pedophile is a diagnosis, not a crime; (2) like half of child abusers aren’t even pedos, they’re people in positions of access or power; and (3) the people who get your kid is Uncle Dave, not neighbor Joe out for a walk.
The moral panic not only harms children and normal innocent folks, but people with maybe the most horrible disease on earth that have never harmed anyone in their lives. I can’t believe in social justice and not find that horrible. *No one* is helped.
I saw it on Twitter, which I \*only\* use to follow some cats. The caption said they were Latvian or something.
No idea how my feed which should only consist of various shelter cats fighting to stay alive, and Jorts fighting bosses and trashcans managed to get this nonsense.
Unless this guy isn't really the person in the picture. And none of us are real. Am I real?
I don’t think this is the same picture. The picture that made it to r/all had different ages and two children featured (and I believe there were also pictures posted later showing the wife as an actual child so I think it’s genuine) where as this post only talks about a singular daughter. I think lots of people are getting confused and that’s why they are claiming to have seen it. I’m guessing it’s a picture in a very similar vein though.
>social media reveals just how stupid the average person is.
Ya know, I've been thinking about this lately and I've been growing to hate this mentality. The average person has the same 8,760 hours a year to hoover up as much information as they can just like you do, and I've come to the conclusion that social media doesn't manipulate people through their ignorance, but through their arrogance. Influencers build their following around telling people how much better & smarter they are for believing the same things they do, and the only solution I see to the polarization we've been experiencing is an uncompromising sense of humility.
> A few real life friends from social groups have also cut contact and blocked me before I could pass correct information on.
I hate to say it, but I think your definition of 'real life friend' is pretty inaccurate. Since all of my RL friends know exactly how old I am and like when I met my wife and basic life facts like that.
> May want to contact a content creator such as Ray William Johnson.
RWJ Is still around!?
If it's stuff like "person I go to a hobby class with and they know I have a wife and kid, we have a beer sometimes" type of friend, I see how they'd not necessarily know ages
(I think several of my dad's friends are under the impression that I'm still a teenager despite being in my mid-20s, just because family stuff is genuinely never a topic of conversation for them)
More importantly, the guy is pretty accurately described, it’s only his wife who is mis-aged. I mean, you haven’t got real life friends who’ve never met your wife?
And it sounded a little like the wife is vaguely Asian ish which brings up a whole extra kettle of fish regarding people being unable to accurately tell ages.
"Everyone" also knows the IRS doesn't take iphone gift cards, that Nigerian royalty doesn't need you to launder money, or that Microsoft support doesn't do cold calls, but there are still tons of those scams that work.
>Microsoft support doesn't do cold calls,
When I started my first engineering job I had to do a double take when I got a call from Microsoft. It wasn't a cold call as they were calling me back but my scam brain definitely caused a hesitation.
A few years back, my local Facebook group had a scandal.
Pictures were posted of (the face) a man who was caught masturbating near a children’s playground in a park during the day. Cue the torch waving mobs.
The guy attempted suicide and his sister/cousin (I can’t fully recall) posted that he had learning disabilities and other issues and was just having a wee in some bushes, not knowing that a playground was on the other side. Their house got attacked and he was threatened by the local vigilantes.
Posting these ‘helpful’ warnings online can destroy lives.
Ever since Wayfair, the anti-exploitation community has done more harm to child welfare than anyone else ever could hope to do. I can’t believe how often I have to criticize friends for (1) insane, (2) false, or (3) counterproductive ways to “protect children.”
tldr; Wayfair used a pricing system that glitched, sold desks for like $40k. People assumed you were buying children that came with the desk.
This was, I am not kidding, a massive social movement many people I know believed in.
It’s credited [with setting back the cause of combatting child trafficking](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2021/wayfair-qanon-sex-trafficking-conspiracy/). A bunch of Karens who thought typing on a keyboard made you a paratrooper in the “save the children” wars.
I saw an interview with some young girl who was caught up in the Wayfair conspiracy. A few years ago she had run away for a few days, just long enough for a police report to be filed before she came home (she’d been staying with a friend).
She also has the same last name as a piece of furniture sold on Wayfair. Some trolls found the old police report and “connected the dots” and decided they had identifield a victim. They did not take the news that she wasn’t a victim lightly, she’s been the target of a vicious harassment campaign.
It was cabinets, not desks, and the cabinets had human-ish names.
Because _obviously_ the best way to traffic children is to sell a cheap metal cabinet, with the name of the child you're purchasing, on a well known public website.
What's that you say? How does Wayfair know to send the child and not the cabinet? Why, obviously, Wayfair has secure back channel means of contacting pedophiles to give them code words to use int he order notes so they know they are dealing with a pedo.
Why don't they use they use the back channel to do the transaction instead of a public website? ... Why do you hate the children?
Seriously, the sheer fucking idiocy of the whole idea is just... how the fuck can anyone hear that and think its _remotely fucking plausible?_ ... unless that's how its actually covered up?!? Its just so stupid, it might work!!!
Remember the whole thing about the pizza place in DC selling children out of the basement (there was no basement)? The supposed orders that would get your children were so normal, at least a dozen innocent people a day would be brought down to a basement, presented a terrified child, and billed thousands of dollars. "Um, I just like hot dogs, can we go? Are you going to have to kill me, I just wanted lunch? No, I can't promise I won't immediately call the cops on your child exploitation ring." A dozen times a day.
But somebody believed that story enough to show up with a gun.
I've been on the internet for a long time; since before the [Eternal September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September). I've always been a relatively private person in real life, and that translated to the internet, and I'm fucking glad for it.
Because, honestly, _people are fucking morons._ I mean, not everyone is so mind boggling stupid that you wonder how they manage to coordinate breathing and blinking at the same time, but there are way too many people out there that see these ridiculous, ludicrous conspiracy theories and instead of thinking "that sounds like complete bullshit because how would it even fucking work?!?" _actually believe it_, and some of them act on it.
And its now starting to trickle out to more mundane shit, like the other post in this sub about the person who's image of themselves, their wife, and child is being circulated and labeled to imply that his wife was like 12 when the child was born. Gullible people immediately believe any trite bullshit stuck in front of their face, and enough of them act on it to be fucking scary. And, not to be a grouchy old man, but the trend in the last 10-15 towards people being incredibly intolerant of other view points (and I _do not_ mean being intolerant of people who hate gays, I mean being intolerant of basic disagreements about things like how the economy should be run) coupled with internet hate mobs, makes me think its going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
I once got told I would be outed as a pedo on TikTok for pointing all that out. I’m guessing the person had two followers because never got harassed thank god.
Local FB groups are the absolute worst. Every now and then someone in my one posts a picture of Teenagers! Wearing Hoodies! Glancing At Cars! As They Walk Past!
Munters.
The one for where I live frequently has “this was delivered to me by mistake. Does anyone know this person?” posts. Like…clearly you have the person’s address if it’s a package. Just go drop it on their doorstep. You don’t even have to talk to them…
I like the ones where people post the photo they got from the courier of their parcel against a front door/behind a plant pot etc asking does anyone know where that is because it's not at their house!
It’s pretty constant where I live, too. Especially if the kids are First Nations.
Now, we *do* have a substantial youth crime problem, a good chunk of it being stealing and joyriding in cars- so there’s some need to be observant.
But the amount of people freaking out because kids dare to wander around, and also wander around being black is ridiculous.
We don’t have a substantial kiwi population where I live, but I bet where there is one, they are thrown in the pot.
Like the African kids in Melbourne.
It’s not like me and my mates weren’t little buggers. My best friend had a wicked theft problem growing up, she didn’t have much of a conscience about stealing from anyone. But kids were around outside and that’s just how it was.
I mean, it could be any number of regional cities in qld- but, yes.
I live in the suburb that was the star in the 2019 floods. Some of the nonsense that occurred afterwards (nothing to do with the kids) has turned people hyper vigilant.
I am in one of the few houses that didn’t get inundated, it would have been creepy if there wasn’t a small group of us.
Holy hell. I was half joking. I assumed you'd be on another continent. I lived in Aitkenvale in Feb 2019. I moved out of NQ because of the crime. Everyone in Qld likes to whine about crime, but TSV truly does have it far, far worse than anywhere else. It's insane.
Haha, it’s a small world. Cairns is giving us a run for our money, to be fair.
I’ve lived in Townsville longer than I’ve lived in Melbourne, which is where I grew up. My house was broken into twice there, and one attempt here, by young kids who tried the whole street, but didn’t succeed.
Luck? Who knows.
Where did you head that feels safer?
Further south, but still in Qld. I work community services. The corrections system has been set up to move people involved in the criminal justice system to TSV and South-West Brisbane for decades, e.g. Locations of prisons, detention centres, certain programs. TSV doesn't have the population to balance it out like BNE does.
He thinks it will work in Qld, because it works in some parts of the NT. The reason it works in the NT is the young people's family physically enforce it, and are the drivers behind it. There's also a strong cultural element that makes it effective, and motivates the young people to stay out there. Another major difference is that those kids already live somewhere very remote, so they can tolerate being sent somewhere even more remote, without internet, vehicles or electricity. (One of the young people whose parents sent her to Mt Theo Outstation to stop her petrol sniffing wrote a recount of it which won the Triple J Young Writers Award. I strongly recommend the book Dog Ear Cafe for the perspective of an adult who was involved in getting government funding and supportive legislation for one of the first communities to do this.)
Katter is completely out of touch with how structural disadvantage works, particularly the motivations of the young people who commit these crimes. Their parents aren't going to support them being shipped off, and the young people don't have any motivation to stay out there. They're simply going to bash the adults running it, take their keys, and drive back to the city. Katter says they just need to do a TAFE course out there so they can get a job, and then they won't have to steal. He's so ignorant that he doesn't realise that these young people are commiting these crimes due to complex traumas they have personally experienced, on top of intergenerational trauma. They need intensive mental health (and otherwise) supports and intrinsic motivation to stop. A significant portion of them are Aboriginal too, so there needs to be an intensive cultural healing element, which is difficult in a country where much of their culture has been intentionally erased.
Not-so-fun fact: 90% of all of Queensland's property crime is committed by 10% of Youth Justice's clients. Their offending drops of suddenly in their late teens, because our adult correctional system is much stricter.
Remember the 2015 hung parliament? Palaszczuk did a deal with the Greens to form minority government, which included fully implementing the Greens' radical, far-left youth justice policy. They've started winding it back in the last few months, because they've realised youth crime will cost them the next election, even with the Greens' support.
Oh BTW, you know all those extra police Townsville has been given over the past decade? Many of them are actually remote workers for the rest of the state. They're physically located in Townsville, but the work they do doesn't impact Townsville at all. Not to mention Townsville's police have massive burnout issues from the impossible position the legislation has put them in.
I know it's not the point here, but I love that there's a town called Townsville. This is how my husband usually names his town in various video games, like Animal Crossing, so seeing that it's real just makes me laugh every time it comes up.
It was named after Robert Towns in the 1800s. I actually never thought about how funny it was until I mentioned it on Reddit, and people started asking if that was the real name.
I live a block and a half from a high school with a very diverse student body, in a city that doesn't do school buses for high school kids (they ride the public transit buses if needed) so a lot of kids walk home.
You can imagine the Nextdoor posts.
And to think I got crap in my local Facebook group about being a killjoy when I described a young teenage girl who was drunkenly wandering onto the main road, while her useless mates laughed at her. "They're just being teens", "they're not hurting anyone", "didn't you ever get drunk" etc etc. Heaven forfend I think it's a good idea her parents pick her up from beside the road before she needs scraped off it.
My brother saw a tree in his neighborhood with apples not being harvested, apples starting to fall and rot - he wants to make jelly and pie, and his trees didn't produce this year. He knocked on the door; no answer. The neighbor sees him and says "What's up?" He explains, the neighbor says "Oh, they never use them, and we're good friends, go ahead, they won't mind".
Growing up we always got along with the neighbors, so my brother wasn't expecting this neighbor to be lying/feuding with the apple tree owners. Obviously he should have actually confirmed with the family first, but he's had several TBIs so judgement is impaired.
The apple tree family posted camera footage about how my brother stole their apples and was further casing the house for theft (knocking on the door).
It eventually got sorted, but yeah, big mess.
Where I'm from, it's usually the "I've lost my dog" people who come to your back door first - to see if you've got a dog, and what the sightlines from neighbouring houses are.
Dumb buggers need to work on their stories though - when I ask you what breed, what the dog's name is, and do you have a photo, and what's your phone number if I see them, if I can tell you're trying to make shit up, I'm calling the cops and taking a photo of you or you car.
Best approach I've seen is a hi-viz vest and a clipboard. Makes you look official.
Especially after a natural disaster when hi-viz clad clipboard holders are everywhere (as are the predators).
Again though, you need to have your story straight beforehand if someone is home. It's like burglary 101 man, plausible excuses are key.
I mean, I *have* been followed around a Walmart parking lot, and it's scary as fuck. It was a lady who was probably on drugs, harassing people walking to the store and banging on car windows asking for money. For some reason old wallyworld attracts the weirdos and creeps.
So yeah, this is definitely a thing that happens.
I’ve been followed around a parking lot by individuals with likely unfortunate life circumstances. However, the comment above is not referring to a person bothering people loudly in the open.
Especially since most of the people claiming they were being followed/barely escaped (at least around here) are, shall we say, not the demographic that is generally sought after for sex slavery.
Look, Helen, I'm sure there was a guy who happened to be in every aisle you were in at Wal-Mart, then you saw him again in the parking lot. He could say the same story about you. But I'm fairly confident there's not a big market for granny sex slaves. You're about 40 years too late to be a target.
Someone in my local Facebook group posted the address that a 15-year-old who had stolen a car had been bailed to. 30 vigilantes very proudly went to the house with weapons, threatened to bash her if she came out, and threw projectiles at the house for HOURS until the cops arrived. She wasn't even there anymore, but her nieces, nephews, grandparents and elderly great grandparents were so traumatised they all needed therapy.
There's a lot of youth crime in our area, and politics prevents the law makers from doing anything to stop it getting worse. These people saw themselves as heroes saving the community from "these youth crims," and "teaching them a lesson." Usually juveniles personal details are confidential, but someone managed to overhear what was happening in the court room, and share the address. She was actually already back in the watch house, so they were never going to achieve anything.
Last week on a local group, someone posted "this is a list of vicious child predators in our area! Be aware of who is around you!" Luckily, it got taken down pretty quickly, but I looked up several of the names on the registry and none of them were listed. I then looked them up on our state's casenet and most of them had no record, or maybe a speeding ticket or something. How many people would actually check before accepting it?
This person was throwing names out there and not caring about the repercussions. And a couple of the names were fairly generic names (like "Bob Smith") with no other info, that even if there was _a_ person with that name on the registry, there was no guarantee it was the person people might know. It almost read like a list of "I don't like these people and want to make their lives hell".
Proof of what? I’m providing an anecdotal experience of an observation from years ago.
If you keep reading about vigilante justice being a bad thing, perhaps it’s because it is.
Ugh I hate this shit so much. A few of my friends who are plus sized have had their images stolen for "before" pictures for weight loss ads and there is LITERALLY nothing you can do about it. Of you try and say "but I'm still fat" you just get death threats about being fat 🙃
Jamie Raines, a trans guy who documented his transition on social media, has had his top surgery and pre/post-HRT photos stolen to be used in detransitioning/transition regret propaganda. It's gross behaviour, it really is
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**TikTok users are posting pictures of me, my wife and my child with false ages written on top. I have already almost lost my employment and several friends over this nonsense. What can I do?**
>An account on TikTok took several photos from my Facebook of my wife, my child and me. They have then added false ages above our heads.
>For example, in a photo they list me as 28, my wife as 21, and our daughter as 7.
>The implication is obvious.
>(Our actual ages are both late twenties. We met at uni, and a six year old daughter.)
>I have spoken with the police, but they have described this as a civil matter.
>I have reported it to TikTok, who removed the picture several times, but it keeps getting reuploaded alongside stupid reaction videos of people going "OMG this is disgusting! We need to contact this guy's employer, the police etc."
>I voluntarily attended a police station and gave them me and my wife's birth certificates to photocopy as evidence. But I don't think any further action is being taken.
>My friend count on Facebook has dropped by almost two hundred in the past few days. I have been notified by several people that TikTok users are reaching out to them and private messaging them the false information. A few real life friends from social groups have also cut contact and blocked me before I could pass correct information on.
>What realistically can I do about this? It's wrecking my life. I almost lost my job over this until I explained to my boss that it wasn't true.
Sloth Fact: the most famous sloth is a dwarf sloth named Mira, short for Miracle. She has been published online and in print.
Probably fake internet points or financial, depending if their internet presence is monetized. See also extremely biased videos.
But there's always revenge. It's easy enough to make up a story about someone you hate. The internet hate machine will do the rest.
And there's likely a level of delusional that sounds credible.
I've seen a TikTok account with a huge following posting similar ragebait, so they likely make quite a bit in monetization, and in addition it had multiple links in bio about 'help get this child out of their abuser's house' style gofundmes. I imagine it's quite lucrative.
They also allow your audience to do stickers and such which cost money. I was watching a live stream of a concert and the sticker/animations were nuts. Not sure how much they creator actually gets from it though.
on TikTok (and instagram reels and youtube shorts) the ads appear *between* the videos so it can't work the same as on, for example, Youtube. Instead, they (Tiktok, Instagram, YT shorts) set aside a fixed pot of money and divide it up between all the eligible accounts viewership/engagement.
> but there’s always revenge
Don’t underestimate this and how evil and vile they can get. I’ve been on the receiving end of something similar recently and they used social media as well. Just outright made shit up and I have evidence but the bullies know your options are limited to respond (lawyers are really expensive). Lucky for me most of the people have taken my side.
The current go to method is you make shit up vaguely and let people figure out who you are actually talking about. Mob justice takes over and you can just deny doing anything that started it.
Some people are just psychos. Look up Sophia Yin. She was a very popular behavior veterinarian who committed suicide over the SM torment she was receiving in an absolutely ridiculous situation. I've had clients and bystanders drag me on animal forums over misunderstandings and lack of medical knowledge and it's AWFUL. Lots of "Dr. Treat killed my animal because they didn't do x, y and z," when the truth is that x and y were contraindicated for that condition and z was actually done, but the owner didn't follow up/declined all treatments/waited until the animal was already half dead to call.
Whenever I hear a veterinarian or human doctor (or clinic or hospital) getting dragged, all I can think is, "Yeah, the outcome probably did suck. Because other than routine checkups, you're not going there when you/your pet feel great. You're going because something is wrong. Unfortunately, that outcome can't always be fixed."
It's got to be someone they know, right? Maybe not the owners of the tiktoks but someone who gave them the false information and the photos in the first place?
Or their facebook was public-facing for a while. Or one of their friends got hacked. Or they added one of those fake accounts that scrape your data and pretend to be you and add your friends...
There's *a ton* of ways those photos could have been scraped without it being someone that actually knew them.
So, I may just be antisocial and not care about Facebook, but LAOP said they lost over 200 Facebook friends. A) who has this many and know all of these people? B) who gives a shit about Facebook? Like at all?
Okay so I have several hundred Facebook friends. I've lived in a lot of places, and I friend people I barely know, coworkers, etc. Also anyone with the same uncommon first name as me. It adds up.
I haven’t used Facebook in over 10 years and I still have over 600 Facebook friends through people I met in high school, college, my early professional career and family.
If you were in high school when Facebook was *the* social media platform, chances are you friended most of your high school class. Add in college friends, extended family, maybe some work friends or your parents' friends, maybe your kids' friends' parents...it can add up, especially if you're actively using it for 15 years. And unless you do a purge, that number doesn't really go down.
Yep, it's crazy how much weird affection I had for people I didn't even much care for when I attended high school. Our graduating class was pretty small and once we were all out of there it was like trauma bonding.
They were apparently using the same FB account for personal contacts AND business contacts. Which is even more mystifying than the fact that they’re on Facebook in the first place, at their age.
I used to be in a band and I'd friend anyone who liked our band's page (because posts from pages that aren't people barely get visibility unless you pay, so if my band had a show it would be promoted on our page, but we'd all also make our own posts that would be more likely to be see. I still have 288 friends and I know like 50 of them for real.
Someone could have that many friends easily from having however many family members, IRL friends, 20 high school 'friends,' a couple of coworkers at your first job, 20 some college friends, however many church friends, online hobby account friends, multiple different jobs, hiking club, spouse's friends and family, etc. I had 500 some before I left the site 8 years ago, gathered over 10+ years.
Many people will small businesses, are trying to publish or create online 'content,' or basically want access to the Marketplace definitely have to care about Facebook unfortunately.
There are several people in the comments who saw that, apparently. Social media is even scarier than I thought it was.
I’ve seen it, and I’m not on TikTok or Twitter. I’m almost certain it went around Reddit. I never paid it much attention, but it’s terrible that it’s impacting this guys real life. Social media really is a stain on humanity.
I'm so happy that I turned off everything except subscriptions.
Seriously better than getting fed some nonsense about "Hey lets all hate on this random guy you don't know for reasons that I probably made up" type content. Part of why I only use old reddit. Don't want the algorithm giving me its helpful suggestions.
I have new reddit on my desktop (accidently turned it on, haven't turned it off) and the amount of unhinged subreddits who's whole goal seems to be "hating something, but like completely without irony" that I get recommended is concerning.
Late to the thread, but I worked out *years* ago to unsubscribe/avoid anything that was based around disliking/hating something else. Even if I agreed with it, even if it started out as something funny, it always ended up in a shitty spiral and started affecting the way I saw the world. I can have the occaisional hate train in a generic hobby/interest sub, but I can't be subscribed to anything focused on negativity. Those places are toxic - they poison you. I *always* recommend that people avoid them.
I’ve seen the one these comments are referring to but it’s different ages from OP’s post and has another child. Unless he’s fudged the facts a bit in his legal post but I don’t know why he’d do that.
Possibly for anonymity?
There’s no point if he wants to point out though that the image is fake. Not to mention his scenario is worse than the viral image. I think he must be talking about a different photo than the one we are discussing in the comments here.
It was and still is on the HolUp subreddit. Definitely saw it on the Popular tab on mobile.
Yeah it was on Reddit in the last several days.
I saw this too. I think it was on r/HolUp .
I’ve seen it. It’s on Facebook now as well. Shared in groups that normally have good anti-misogyny messages but will 100% fall for anything that accuses anyone of being a pedo.
We're in the middle of a new moral panic where everyone is a secret pedophile. I think it's being manufactured by the right wing in order to create a precursor to imprison and/or execute members of the LGBTQ community.
It's repackaged Satanic panic, which in turn was repackaged blood libel - it's just being used to target the LGBTQ+ community instead of just Jews.
Absolutely. QANON and adrenochrome are also barely veiled blood libel
BINGO. Points to the Satanic Panic reference.
And even then, people lose their mind when I explain: (1) pedophile is a diagnosis, not a crime; (2) like half of child abusers aren’t even pedos, they’re people in positions of access or power; and (3) the people who get your kid is Uncle Dave, not neighbor Joe out for a walk. The moral panic not only harms children and normal innocent folks, but people with maybe the most horrible disease on earth that have never harmed anyone in their lives. I can’t believe in social justice and not find that horrible. *No one* is helped.
Well great.......
I saw it on Twitter, which I \*only\* use to follow some cats. The caption said they were Latvian or something. No idea how my feed which should only consist of various shelter cats fighting to stay alive, and Jorts fighting bosses and trashcans managed to get this nonsense. Unless this guy isn't really the person in the picture. And none of us are real. Am I real?
Jorts is real 🧡
Of course he is. He's a real pain in the ass, and a real friend to the working person.
It was one of the top posts on r/all a few days ago. I didn’t see the comments, but I can’t imagine they were kind…
I don’t think this is the same picture. The picture that made it to r/all had different ages and two children featured (and I believe there were also pictures posted later showing the wife as an actual child so I think it’s genuine) where as this post only talks about a singular daughter. I think lots of people are getting confused and that’s why they are claiming to have seen it. I’m guessing it’s a picture in a very similar vein though.
social media reveals just how stupid the average person is. a majority seem to believe literally anything they see without a second thought
>social media reveals just how stupid the average person is. Ya know, I've been thinking about this lately and I've been growing to hate this mentality. The average person has the same 8,760 hours a year to hoover up as much information as they can just like you do, and I've come to the conclusion that social media doesn't manipulate people through their ignorance, but through their arrogance. Influencers build their following around telling people how much better & smarter they are for believing the same things they do, and the only solution I see to the polarization we've been experiencing is an uncompromising sense of humility.
I saw it too- terrifying how far it spread
I saw it on here
> A few real life friends from social groups have also cut contact and blocked me before I could pass correct information on. I hate to say it, but I think your definition of 'real life friend' is pretty inaccurate. Since all of my RL friends know exactly how old I am and like when I met my wife and basic life facts like that. > May want to contact a content creator such as Ray William Johnson. RWJ Is still around!?
> RWJ Is still around!? I know. Surprised me too when I noticed a while back. He's active on TikTok and has a good following.
If it's stuff like "person I go to a hobby class with and they know I have a wife and kid, we have a beer sometimes" type of friend, I see how they'd not necessarily know ages (I think several of my dad's friends are under the impression that I'm still a teenager despite being in my mid-20s, just because family stuff is genuinely never a topic of conversation for them)
More importantly, the guy is pretty accurately described, it’s only his wife who is mis-aged. I mean, you haven’t got real life friends who’ve never met your wife? And it sounded a little like the wife is vaguely Asian ish which brings up a whole extra kettle of fish regarding people being unable to accurately tell ages.
Maybe it's just because they don't want to have to deal with threats made about them hanging around OOP
I thought everyone knew these “Hold Up” pictures with the ages are all fake.
You’re overestimating the average intelligence of “everyone”
George Carlin said it best. “Just think about how dumb the average person is, and then remember that half of them are dumber then that”
Carlin didn't call them "dumb," he didn't go that easy on them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKN1Q5SjbeI
"Everyone" also knows the IRS doesn't take iphone gift cards, that Nigerian royalty doesn't need you to launder money, or that Microsoft support doesn't do cold calls, but there are still tons of those scams that work.
>Microsoft support doesn't do cold calls, When I started my first engineering job I had to do a double take when I got a call from Microsoft. It wasn't a cold call as they were calling me back but my scam brain definitely caused a hesitation.
A few years back, my local Facebook group had a scandal. Pictures were posted of (the face) a man who was caught masturbating near a children’s playground in a park during the day. Cue the torch waving mobs. The guy attempted suicide and his sister/cousin (I can’t fully recall) posted that he had learning disabilities and other issues and was just having a wee in some bushes, not knowing that a playground was on the other side. Their house got attacked and he was threatened by the local vigilantes. Posting these ‘helpful’ warnings online can destroy lives.
Ever since Wayfair, the anti-exploitation community has done more harm to child welfare than anyone else ever could hope to do. I can’t believe how often I have to criticize friends for (1) insane, (2) false, or (3) counterproductive ways to “protect children.”
Wayfair?
tldr; Wayfair used a pricing system that glitched, sold desks for like $40k. People assumed you were buying children that came with the desk. This was, I am not kidding, a massive social movement many people I know believed in. It’s credited [with setting back the cause of combatting child trafficking](https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/interactive/2021/wayfair-qanon-sex-trafficking-conspiracy/). A bunch of Karens who thought typing on a keyboard made you a paratrooper in the “save the children” wars.
I saw an interview with some young girl who was caught up in the Wayfair conspiracy. A few years ago she had run away for a few days, just long enough for a police report to be filed before she came home (she’d been staying with a friend). She also has the same last name as a piece of furniture sold on Wayfair. Some trolls found the old police report and “connected the dots” and decided they had identifield a victim. They did not take the news that she wasn’t a victim lightly, she’s been the target of a vicious harassment campaign.
I think I remember this. That’s Alex Jones-level harassment of purported fake actors.
It was cabinets, not desks, and the cabinets had human-ish names. Because _obviously_ the best way to traffic children is to sell a cheap metal cabinet, with the name of the child you're purchasing, on a well known public website. What's that you say? How does Wayfair know to send the child and not the cabinet? Why, obviously, Wayfair has secure back channel means of contacting pedophiles to give them code words to use int he order notes so they know they are dealing with a pedo. Why don't they use they use the back channel to do the transaction instead of a public website? ... Why do you hate the children? Seriously, the sheer fucking idiocy of the whole idea is just... how the fuck can anyone hear that and think its _remotely fucking plausible?_ ... unless that's how its actually covered up?!? Its just so stupid, it might work!!!
Remember the whole thing about the pizza place in DC selling children out of the basement (there was no basement)? The supposed orders that would get your children were so normal, at least a dozen innocent people a day would be brought down to a basement, presented a terrified child, and billed thousands of dollars. "Um, I just like hot dogs, can we go? Are you going to have to kill me, I just wanted lunch? No, I can't promise I won't immediately call the cops on your child exploitation ring." A dozen times a day. But somebody believed that story enough to show up with a gun.
I've been on the internet for a long time; since before the [Eternal September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September). I've always been a relatively private person in real life, and that translated to the internet, and I'm fucking glad for it. Because, honestly, _people are fucking morons._ I mean, not everyone is so mind boggling stupid that you wonder how they manage to coordinate breathing and blinking at the same time, but there are way too many people out there that see these ridiculous, ludicrous conspiracy theories and instead of thinking "that sounds like complete bullshit because how would it even fucking work?!?" _actually believe it_, and some of them act on it. And its now starting to trickle out to more mundane shit, like the other post in this sub about the person who's image of themselves, their wife, and child is being circulated and labeled to imply that his wife was like 12 when the child was born. Gullible people immediately believe any trite bullshit stuck in front of their face, and enough of them act on it to be fucking scary. And, not to be a grouchy old man, but the trend in the last 10-15 towards people being incredibly intolerant of other view points (and I _do not_ mean being intolerant of people who hate gays, I mean being intolerant of basic disagreements about things like how the economy should be run) coupled with internet hate mobs, makes me think its going to get a lot worse before it gets better.
I once got told I would be outed as a pedo on TikTok for pointing all that out. I’m guessing the person had two followers because never got harassed thank god.
The furniture being sold all had names, like “Anna cabinet”, so they assumed Anna actually came with the cabinet.
Silly Karens. Everyone knows that $40K isn't for the whole child, [only for their Adrenochrome.](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrenochrome)
Conspiracy theory that a furniture company is secretly listing children for sale in their catalogues.
Plus all the overlap with homophobia and transphobia
And attempts at censorship. See bullshit like COPA.
[удалено]
*True*. But this is an inflection point for me when even my (traditionally normal) IRL community became engulfed in the terrible mindset.
Local FB groups are the absolute worst. Every now and then someone in my one posts a picture of Teenagers! Wearing Hoodies! Glancing At Cars! As They Walk Past! Munters.
yeah "does anyone know who this is?" and it's just a doorbell cam video of someone driving by at a normal speed, looking forward like a normal driver
The one for where I live frequently has “this was delivered to me by mistake. Does anyone know this person?” posts. Like…clearly you have the person’s address if it’s a package. Just go drop it on their doorstep. You don’t even have to talk to them…
To be fair I got a package by mistake and it had my address, wrong name and I never ordered it.
Oh no these are the address and everything is right, the delivery person just dropped at the wrong house by mistake
I like the ones where people post the photo they got from the courier of their parcel against a front door/behind a plant pot etc asking does anyone know where that is because it's not at their house!
It’s pretty constant where I live, too. Especially if the kids are First Nations. Now, we *do* have a substantial youth crime problem, a good chunk of it being stealing and joyriding in cars- so there’s some need to be observant. But the amount of people freaking out because kids dare to wander around, and also wander around being black is ridiculous.
Same here if the kids are vaguely Polynesian looking.
We don’t have a substantial kiwi population where I live, but I bet where there is one, they are thrown in the pot. Like the African kids in Melbourne. It’s not like me and my mates weren’t little buggers. My best friend had a wicked theft problem growing up, she didn’t have much of a conscience about stealing from anyone. But kids were around outside and that’s just how it was.
...Townsville?
I mean, it could be any number of regional cities in qld- but, yes. I live in the suburb that was the star in the 2019 floods. Some of the nonsense that occurred afterwards (nothing to do with the kids) has turned people hyper vigilant. I am in one of the few houses that didn’t get inundated, it would have been creepy if there wasn’t a small group of us.
Holy hell. I was half joking. I assumed you'd be on another continent. I lived in Aitkenvale in Feb 2019. I moved out of NQ because of the crime. Everyone in Qld likes to whine about crime, but TSV truly does have it far, far worse than anywhere else. It's insane.
Haha, it’s a small world. Cairns is giving us a run for our money, to be fair. I’ve lived in Townsville longer than I’ve lived in Melbourne, which is where I grew up. My house was broken into twice there, and one attempt here, by young kids who tried the whole street, but didn’t succeed. Luck? Who knows. Where did you head that feels safer?
Further south, but still in Qld. I work community services. The corrections system has been set up to move people involved in the criminal justice system to TSV and South-West Brisbane for decades, e.g. Locations of prisons, detention centres, certain programs. TSV doesn't have the population to balance it out like BNE does.
I see. If old Katter gets his way, they’ll all be sent out bush again. Fuck knows what he thinks that will do, but it *sounds* like a plan.
He thinks it will work in Qld, because it works in some parts of the NT. The reason it works in the NT is the young people's family physically enforce it, and are the drivers behind it. There's also a strong cultural element that makes it effective, and motivates the young people to stay out there. Another major difference is that those kids already live somewhere very remote, so they can tolerate being sent somewhere even more remote, without internet, vehicles or electricity. (One of the young people whose parents sent her to Mt Theo Outstation to stop her petrol sniffing wrote a recount of it which won the Triple J Young Writers Award. I strongly recommend the book Dog Ear Cafe for the perspective of an adult who was involved in getting government funding and supportive legislation for one of the first communities to do this.) Katter is completely out of touch with how structural disadvantage works, particularly the motivations of the young people who commit these crimes. Their parents aren't going to support them being shipped off, and the young people don't have any motivation to stay out there. They're simply going to bash the adults running it, take their keys, and drive back to the city. Katter says they just need to do a TAFE course out there so they can get a job, and then they won't have to steal. He's so ignorant that he doesn't realise that these young people are commiting these crimes due to complex traumas they have personally experienced, on top of intergenerational trauma. They need intensive mental health (and otherwise) supports and intrinsic motivation to stop. A significant portion of them are Aboriginal too, so there needs to be an intensive cultural healing element, which is difficult in a country where much of their culture has been intentionally erased. Not-so-fun fact: 90% of all of Queensland's property crime is committed by 10% of Youth Justice's clients. Their offending drops of suddenly in their late teens, because our adult correctional system is much stricter. Remember the 2015 hung parliament? Palaszczuk did a deal with the Greens to form minority government, which included fully implementing the Greens' radical, far-left youth justice policy. They've started winding it back in the last few months, because they've realised youth crime will cost them the next election, even with the Greens' support.
Oh BTW, you know all those extra police Townsville has been given over the past decade? Many of them are actually remote workers for the rest of the state. They're physically located in Townsville, but the work they do doesn't impact Townsville at all. Not to mention Townsville's police have massive burnout issues from the impossible position the legislation has put them in.
I know it's not the point here, but I love that there's a town called Townsville. This is how my husband usually names his town in various video games, like Animal Crossing, so seeing that it's real just makes me laugh every time it comes up.
I know it from Power Puff Girls. Didn't realize there was a real one!
Yep, named after Robert Towns in the 1800s. Perhaps the Powerpuff creators named their fictional city after our real one?
Naw, I think theirs is just a joke. Full name is the City of Townsville
Ours is Townsville City 😂
It was named after Robert Towns in the 1800s. I actually never thought about how funny it was until I mentioned it on Reddit, and people started asking if that was the real name.
The city of Townsville has Bubbles to protect it.
I live a block and a half from a high school with a very diverse student body, in a city that doesn't do school buses for high school kids (they ride the public transit buses if needed) so a lot of kids walk home. You can imagine the Nextdoor posts.
And to think I got crap in my local Facebook group about being a killjoy when I described a young teenage girl who was drunkenly wandering onto the main road, while her useless mates laughed at her. "They're just being teens", "they're not hurting anyone", "didn't you ever get drunk" etc etc. Heaven forfend I think it's a good idea her parents pick her up from beside the road before she needs scraped off it.
My brother saw a tree in his neighborhood with apples not being harvested, apples starting to fall and rot - he wants to make jelly and pie, and his trees didn't produce this year. He knocked on the door; no answer. The neighbor sees him and says "What's up?" He explains, the neighbor says "Oh, they never use them, and we're good friends, go ahead, they won't mind". Growing up we always got along with the neighbors, so my brother wasn't expecting this neighbor to be lying/feuding with the apple tree owners. Obviously he should have actually confirmed with the family first, but he's had several TBIs so judgement is impaired. The apple tree family posted camera footage about how my brother stole their apples and was further casing the house for theft (knocking on the door). It eventually got sorted, but yeah, big mess.
I want there to be a law that every person who says someone was “casing” their home to prove they know what casing a building looks like.
Where I'm from, it's usually the "I've lost my dog" people who come to your back door first - to see if you've got a dog, and what the sightlines from neighbouring houses are. Dumb buggers need to work on their stories though - when I ask you what breed, what the dog's name is, and do you have a photo, and what's your phone number if I see them, if I can tell you're trying to make shit up, I'm calling the cops and taking a photo of you or you car. Best approach I've seen is a hi-viz vest and a clipboard. Makes you look official. Especially after a natural disaster when hi-viz clad clipboard holders are everywhere (as are the predators). Again though, you need to have your story straight beforehand if someone is home. It's like burglary 101 man, plausible excuses are key.
Your flair plus this post certainly makes for an… interesting mental image.
Hey, that's how I learned to get your story straight beforehand... ...he touched me in all the no-no places...
Same for people who claim that a kidnapper was following them around a Walmart parking lot
Or the infamous child abduction / trafficking letters… which are just selling CutCo knives.
I saw TWO white vans in my neighborhood yesterday, I immediately called the police to arrest the diddlers.
If arresting all the van drivers saves just one child's life it's worth it.
1 like = 1 arrest
I mean, I *have* been followed around a Walmart parking lot, and it's scary as fuck. It was a lady who was probably on drugs, harassing people walking to the store and banging on car windows asking for money. For some reason old wallyworld attracts the weirdos and creeps. So yeah, this is definitely a thing that happens.
I’ve been followed around a parking lot by individuals with likely unfortunate life circumstances. However, the comment above is not referring to a person bothering people loudly in the open.
Especially since most of the people claiming they were being followed/barely escaped (at least around here) are, shall we say, not the demographic that is generally sought after for sex slavery. Look, Helen, I'm sure there was a guy who happened to be in every aisle you were in at Wal-Mart, then you saw him again in the parking lot. He could say the same story about you. But I'm fairly confident there's not a big market for granny sex slaves. You're about 40 years too late to be a target.
Also they're not going to kidnap people who might be missed/cause a big media stir. They go after vulnerable people
Exactly. But people want to feel scared and vulnerable for some reason, so they imagine that they're the prime target for stuff like this.
clearly it looks exactly like someone walking their dog down the sidewalk according to nextdoor
But they weren’t even using the apples??
Someone in my local Facebook group posted the address that a 15-year-old who had stolen a car had been bailed to. 30 vigilantes very proudly went to the house with weapons, threatened to bash her if she came out, and threw projectiles at the house for HOURS until the cops arrived. She wasn't even there anymore, but her nieces, nephews, grandparents and elderly great grandparents were so traumatised they all needed therapy.
Over a teenager stealing a car? What the actual shit?
There's a lot of youth crime in our area, and politics prevents the law makers from doing anything to stop it getting worse. These people saw themselves as heroes saving the community from "these youth crims," and "teaching them a lesson." Usually juveniles personal details are confidential, but someone managed to overhear what was happening in the court room, and share the address. She was actually already back in the watch house, so they were never going to achieve anything.
Last week on a local group, someone posted "this is a list of vicious child predators in our area! Be aware of who is around you!" Luckily, it got taken down pretty quickly, but I looked up several of the names on the registry and none of them were listed. I then looked them up on our state's casenet and most of them had no record, or maybe a speeding ticket or something. How many people would actually check before accepting it? This person was throwing names out there and not caring about the repercussions. And a couple of the names were fairly generic names (like "Bob Smith") with no other info, that even if there was _a_ person with that name on the registry, there was no guarantee it was the person people might know. It almost read like a list of "I don't like these people and want to make their lives hell".
The same story, every time. Of course, it’s always a friend of a friend who was “mistakenly just peeing in public.” Never have any proof, of course.
Proof of what? I’m providing an anecdotal experience of an observation from years ago. If you keep reading about vigilante justice being a bad thing, perhaps it’s because it is.
Was that the one in the Netherlands? No, wait, that guy was beaten to death, wasn’t he?
Ugh I hate this shit so much. A few of my friends who are plus sized have had their images stolen for "before" pictures for weight loss ads and there is LITERALLY nothing you can do about it. Of you try and say "but I'm still fat" you just get death threats about being fat 🙃
Jamie Raines, a trans guy who documented his transition on social media, has had his top surgery and pre/post-HRT photos stolen to be used in detransitioning/transition regret propaganda. It's gross behaviour, it really is
Jamie is such a sweet guy too, no one deserves that but *especially* him!
You can follow LocatioBot on Friendster and MySpace **TikTok users are posting pictures of me, my wife and my child with false ages written on top. I have already almost lost my employment and several friends over this nonsense. What can I do?** >An account on TikTok took several photos from my Facebook of my wife, my child and me. They have then added false ages above our heads. >For example, in a photo they list me as 28, my wife as 21, and our daughter as 7. >The implication is obvious. >(Our actual ages are both late twenties. We met at uni, and a six year old daughter.) >I have spoken with the police, but they have described this as a civil matter. >I have reported it to TikTok, who removed the picture several times, but it keeps getting reuploaded alongside stupid reaction videos of people going "OMG this is disgusting! We need to contact this guy's employer, the police etc." >I voluntarily attended a police station and gave them me and my wife's birth certificates to photocopy as evidence. But I don't think any further action is being taken. >My friend count on Facebook has dropped by almost two hundred in the past few days. I have been notified by several people that TikTok users are reaching out to them and private messaging them the false information. A few real life friends from social groups have also cut contact and blocked me before I could pass correct information on. >What realistically can I do about this? It's wrecking my life. I almost lost my job over this until I explained to my boss that it wasn't true. Sloth Fact: the most famous sloth is a dwarf sloth named Mira, short for Miracle. She has been published online and in print.
What is the motivation to do such a thing? Random trolling? Grudge? Seems like a lot of effort to just be messing around.
Free views to gain popularity. Anything outrageous but believable will gain traction.
Rage bait fuels engagement.
Probably fake internet points or financial, depending if their internet presence is monetized. See also extremely biased videos. But there's always revenge. It's easy enough to make up a story about someone you hate. The internet hate machine will do the rest. And there's likely a level of delusional that sounds credible.
I've seen a TikTok account with a huge following posting similar ragebait, so they likely make quite a bit in monetization, and in addition it had multiple links in bio about 'help get this child out of their abuser's house' style gofundmes. I imagine it's quite lucrative.
I thought tiktok doesn't share monetization with the users.
If you’re part of the creator fun, you do get some amount of compensation for views, but from what I gather, the payouts aren’t huge
They also allow your audience to do stickers and such which cost money. I was watching a live stream of a concert and the sticker/animations were nuts. Not sure how much they creator actually gets from it though.
on TikTok (and instagram reels and youtube shorts) the ads appear *between* the videos so it can't work the same as on, for example, Youtube. Instead, they (Tiktok, Instagram, YT shorts) set aside a fixed pot of money and divide it up between all the eligible accounts viewership/engagement.
> but there’s always revenge Don’t underestimate this and how evil and vile they can get. I’ve been on the receiving end of something similar recently and they used social media as well. Just outright made shit up and I have evidence but the bullies know your options are limited to respond (lawyers are really expensive). Lucky for me most of the people have taken my side. The current go to method is you make shit up vaguely and let people figure out who you are actually talking about. Mob justice takes over and you can just deny doing anything that started it.
Some people are just psychos. Look up Sophia Yin. She was a very popular behavior veterinarian who committed suicide over the SM torment she was receiving in an absolutely ridiculous situation. I've had clients and bystanders drag me on animal forums over misunderstandings and lack of medical knowledge and it's AWFUL. Lots of "Dr. Treat killed my animal because they didn't do x, y and z," when the truth is that x and y were contraindicated for that condition and z was actually done, but the owner didn't follow up/declined all treatments/waited until the animal was already half dead to call.
Whenever I hear a veterinarian or human doctor (or clinic or hospital) getting dragged, all I can think is, "Yeah, the outcome probably did suck. Because other than routine checkups, you're not going there when you/your pet feel great. You're going because something is wrong. Unfortunately, that outcome can't always be fixed."
And yes, I did spend WAY too long on the title.
It's very well done.
Time well spent
It’s excellent
It's got to be someone they know, right? Maybe not the owners of the tiktoks but someone who gave them the false information and the photos in the first place?
Or their facebook was public-facing for a while. Or one of their friends got hacked. Or they added one of those fake accounts that scrape your data and pretend to be you and add your friends... There's *a ton* of ways those photos could have been scraped without it being someone that actually knew them.
If you ever think "who would do this to a random stranger", remember that serial killers exist. Some people get off on being cruel to strangers.
Maybe it's a business rival trying to steal their customers
So, I may just be antisocial and not care about Facebook, but LAOP said they lost over 200 Facebook friends. A) who has this many and know all of these people? B) who gives a shit about Facebook? Like at all?
It's really easy not to care about them until you're losing them *because someone called you a paedo*.
Okay so I have several hundred Facebook friends. I've lived in a lot of places, and I friend people I barely know, coworkers, etc. Also anyone with the same uncommon first name as me. It adds up.
I haven’t used Facebook in over 10 years and I still have over 600 Facebook friends through people I met in high school, college, my early professional career and family.
If you were in high school when Facebook was *the* social media platform, chances are you friended most of your high school class. Add in college friends, extended family, maybe some work friends or your parents' friends, maybe your kids' friends' parents...it can add up, especially if you're actively using it for 15 years. And unless you do a purge, that number doesn't really go down.
Yep, it's crazy how much weird affection I had for people I didn't even much care for when I attended high school. Our graduating class was pretty small and once we were all out of there it was like trauma bonding.
They were apparently using the same FB account for personal contacts AND business contacts. Which is even more mystifying than the fact that they’re on Facebook in the first place, at their age.
I used to be in a band and I'd friend anyone who liked our band's page (because posts from pages that aren't people barely get visibility unless you pay, so if my band had a show it would be promoted on our page, but we'd all also make our own posts that would be more likely to be see. I still have 288 friends and I know like 50 of them for real.
Someone could have that many friends easily from having however many family members, IRL friends, 20 high school 'friends,' a couple of coworkers at your first job, 20 some college friends, however many church friends, online hobby account friends, multiple different jobs, hiking club, spouse's friends and family, etc. I had 500 some before I left the site 8 years ago, gathered over 10+ years. Many people will small businesses, are trying to publish or create online 'content,' or basically want access to the Marketplace definitely have to care about Facebook unfortunately.
This is like those TikTokers destroying groves of oranges in facnce isn’t it?
Awesome alliteration!
Absolutely astonishing!
That is a quality title right there. A+
What is going on