By exposing, I mean showing them up in a highly public subreddit/community/forum etc with solid proof (direct links showing them grooming someone they knew was underage, archived voice clips, webpages, screenshots etc) and getting that community to instantly turn on them, or in some cases getting them banned from the community because the mods saw the evidence and decided that they don’t feel safe having that person in their community.
Also, is vigilantism generally seen as a good or a bad thing?
If it’s illegal get the law enforcement involved.
Mob justice is not a good idea.
If you see a actual crime being committed you call the police. That’s criminal law works.
An Online circle jerk is just that … But people keep trying to litigate criminal allegations and a lot of is done in bad faith.
Without people using their own ID and making statements to court, it is just bullshit. This doesn’t that some of it ain’t true though! Just hard to tell what is true.
So to start with the “also”… vigilantism is mob justice. It is always a bad thing because it denies people their due process.
It is very, very rare for vigilantes to get it right, or to have excellent target selection. The vast majority of vigilantes go after innocent people whose sole crime is to be different- because they’re bigots.
That said, assuming you didn’t otherwise break the law (so no breaking and entry, or hacking etc) it would most closely be investigative journalism. Sure it might get taken down on whatever platform, etc, but that doesn’t make it vigilantism
Irrespective of any subsequent arrests made, publicizing evidence of actual criminal activity is generally a social good, which often doesn’t (but can) overlap with vigilantism. Taking the term broadly, vigilantism is doing something that the law can’t/won’t do. Wikipedia discusses the various definitions, some of which require the use of force (something conventionally reserved to the law or government) but the broadest definition would include whistleblowing and community activism.
On the flip side, certain forms of publicizing evidence are illegal, such as leaking designated national secrets. In the USA, apart from that rather narrow exception, the First Amendment’s guarantee of free speech provides the legal cover to reveal the genuine evidence of someone’s criminal conduct, because criminal matters are: 1) in the public interest to expose, 2) an assailant cannot assert a privacy interest upon the evidence of their crime, and 3) the truth cannot be penalized by defamation claims. That basically covers any applicable USA free speech exceptions, although someone accused could file a frivolous lawsuit to financially harass the one who exposed the evidence. Such lawsuits are only punishable in the handful of states with anti-SLAPP laws, which is why more states and the feds need to adopt anti-SLAPP protections.
So from a legal perspective, leaking evidence of a crime is generally allowed. From a moral perspective, most would agree, and it’s why we have things like public trials. But does exposing crimes constitute vigilantism? I would say no, but others with a different definition might say yes, even if they agree that’s it’s legally and morally correct.
well depends on your definition. In short it means attempting to make justice without authorization.
In the case of doing legal research, accessing things that are happening in public, and turning them in to authorities (be it community wise, or law enforcement. I would say very few have any opposition to.
Where it gets far greyer is when you are doing things that are illegal or imoral in and of themselves without evidence of what you are dealing with.
IE say you hack someone’s computer to discover they have been doing illegal actions etc… In the case of the guilty person most people are good with that… but it begs the question, did you hack a bunch of innocent people, to find that one guilty person. How did you know they were guilty etc…
and then of course the more absolute extreme ones, when you apply the punishment yourself in spite of that being a crime in and of itself. Say you beat up, kill, kidnap, destroy proporty etc… That’s generally frowned upon, except in instances where most people can agree on the horror of the crime, and completely lack any faith in the legal channels to appropriately enforce it even when the evidence is right in front of their faces. IE why fictional superheros like batman are popular (and why making him popular mostly involves the story implying that gotham’s police are either incompetent or too corrupt to enforce the law), as well as say in the real world people like Luigi are loved.
Where do you draw the line?
Paedophilia? Extremism from the far right? From the far left? Stealing cars? Stealing bikes?
Report someone to the mods, if you think he or she broke the law. They will hopefully report it to law enforcement authorities.
Report someone to the mods if you think he or she didn’t stick to the rules for this community so they can decide.
Anything else can fast be denunciation, not vigilance. So it’s also kind of protecting yourself to not publish “evidence” of misconduct.
You call the mods when you see crime?
Hmmm
Arresting people is literally the opposite of vigilantism
Vigilantism is bad because of the slippery slope issue. It starts with solid proof, and then slowly declines towards “vibes”, or fabrication of proof.
“Beyond reasonable doubt” is the high bar set by the legal system, and they have the processes in place to ensure that the bar is met before declaring guilt (its not perfect, but it is so far the best system we have).
If the proof is solid, and the law enforcement is functional, its better to hand it to them and let the system do its job. If the law enforcement isnt functional, vigilantism is all that is left, but you should strive to meet the “beyond reasonable doubt” bar. E.g is the evidence good, do you have the right person, could someone else be framing/manipulating the facts.
