A Facebook campaign which purports to fight child abuse by asking users to change their profile picture to that of their favourite cartoon character has run into controversy.
The campaign, which urges the image swap, has swept the social networking site and boasts a group page of nearly 90,000 fans. While many believe the viral originated from the children's charity the NSPCC, it has denied any involvement, although welcomes the focus on the work it does.
However, disturbingly, rumours are now sweeping the net that the campaign is actually a smokescreen for paedophiles hoping to narrow down which users are children.
... one Facebooker asked: ‘How is this gonna help stop child abuse? Sounds like something a paedophile would do!’
Another user posted the following warning: ‘The paedophiles have it easy finding the kids this way from a cartoon in your past! Obviously if someone posts Spongebob Square Pants it’s probably a kid, now Betty Boop an adult!’
The reason I post this kind of thing is because the level of sheer hysteria surrounding pedophiles has the unfortunate side effect of doing a great deal of harm to innocent men and women.
Yes, that this kind of thing is connected to feminism is not immediately obvious - and I am the first to admit that it has caused terrible suffering to innocent women as well as men.
Children, too, end up harmed indirectly when their innocent parents or relatives are targeted by misinformed lynch mobs.
How much crazier can the pedophile craze get than the rationalisations above? Surely, if everyone had a cartoon as an avatar, it would be much more difficult to tell what their ages are, than if they had their own pictures.
To me, that just seems obvious.
But perhaps, to some people, that's "just what a pedophile would say!" Ha.
How many of these people who froth and rage about child abuse actually do a damn thing in the interests of children - and how many just want to persecute others?
You might think that it's not such a bad thing even if pedophiles do get persecuted.
Fair enough.
But if these people really want to persecute more than they want to protect, then they are more likely to act on their urge to persecute than their urge to protect. No?
Then, a simple accusation will often be enough to wind up an excited mob, and it will be impossible to sway them from persecuting somebody who may very well be innocent, or even the victim of a malicious accusation.
Lives have been destroyed this way.
"Then, a simple accusation will often be enough to wind up an excited mob, and it will be impossible to sway them from persecuting somebody who may very well be innocent, or even the victim of a malicious accusation."
ReplyDeleteSounds like the French Revolution, or any other historical era when mob hysteria got out of control, and criminal scum emerged from the woodwork to take opportunistic advantage.