The recent case in France of a retired teacher ensnared by an online vigilante posing as a teenage girl has put paedophile hunters back in the headlines. But while some welcome amateurs taking matters into their own hands and streamers build up a following, experts warn it could deprive victims of the opportunity to see justice served.
Can you take the law into your own hands? The law itself says no. But vigilantes who do just that are rife on the internet and, thanks to social media, their numbers are on the rise.
Child sex offenders are their prime target. French streamer FINNYZYY has generated headlines over the last week after ensnaring Dominique B, a 66-year-old retired sports teacher who believed he was talking to a 14-year-old girl online.
In reality this was FINNYZYY, using artificial intelligence tools to generate the face and voice of a young girl during their video calls.
Like others who have been similarly caught out, Dominique B had steered the conversation towards sexual topics, asking the “girl” if she would like to kiss him and see him naked, and if she ever shared nude photos.
“I don’t play along,” the streamer told France Info, saying that instead he lets his targets incriminate themselves and that he is primarily looking for “evidence” and to “raise awareness and show people the truth”.
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Legal risks
The entire operation was streamed live on the Twitch platform, with no attempt to conceal the identities of those involved.
In the case of Dominique B, who turned himself in to a local police station in eastern France the following day, his personal details were revealed throughout the live stream to an audience of several thousand viewers.
Without denying the legitimacy of “society’s concern about the scourge of online paedophilia”, Claire Poirson, a lawyer specialising in digital law, highlights the risks faced by internet users who engage in vigilante actions.
These fall under both civil liability, including invasion of privacy, infringement of image rights and the presumption of innocence, and criminal liability relating to defamation and false accusations, she explained.
The actions of online vigilantes are frequently criticised by the police and the judiciary, as they can “jeopardise an entire legal proceeding”, she added.
A paedophile who realises they have been identified might delete all incriminating evidence, which prosecutors could otherwise have used in court.
There is also the question of incitement, points out Mr Fox, a content creator who also snares paedophiles online but does not reveal their faces.
“If I initiate the conversation myself and add [the alleged paedophile to the chat] myself, it is considered incitement, given that I am not a real teenager or young girl, and so it will be deemed that I deliberately chose to set a trap for him,” he explained.
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‘Vigilante-entrepreneurs’
“Vigilantism is a cheap but amateur form of law enforcement, and therefore prone to all sorts of abuse,” notes Laurent Gayer, a researcher at Sciences Po university and co-author of the book Proud to Punish: The World of Outlaw Vigilantes.
Streamers who broadcast their vigilante activities in real time to a wide audience assume the triple role of “investigator, judge and executioner”, he says.
This practice has become the subject of intense debate.
While media coverage of the presence of paedophiles on social media raises public awareness of a reality that is all too often ignored, it also enables certain content creators to build lucrative careers by cultivating a loyal following for their “predator hunts”.
According to Gayer, “a new figure of the vigilante-entrepreneur or vigilante-influencer” is emerging.
“They act on behalf of a community, a group of collective victims whom they use to legitimise themselves. And at the same time, they are very clearly there to generate buzz, to grow their business. They thrive on clicks and advertising.”
Face-to-face attacks
So far, vigilante streamers in France have confined themselves to naming and shaming, says Gayer – “that is, exposing people to unwanted publicity, which is really the primary weapon of digital vigilantism, and which effectively amounts to meting out punishment”.
However, other groups, with no connection to the streaming scene, have no qualms about resorting to violence.
Broken up by French police in 2024, the self-styled “anti-paedophile league” is suspected of being behind more than 200 ambushes and assaults, many of which were broadcast on social media.
Although rare in France, violent vigilantism against online paedophiles has become a trend in recent years, particularly in the United States.
From the Predator Poachers account to the videographers Shuamundy and 561predcatchers, YouTube channels and profiles on X (formerly Twitter) dedicated to this type of content are rife across the Atlantic.
Unlike streamers, these self-proclaimed “paedophile hunters” prefer face-to-face encounters. They too use fake social media profiles to pose as minors, then arrange to meet their target in a public place, where they then confront them, camera in hand.
Sometimes an actor – referred to as a “decoy” or “bait” – will play the role of the minor during the meeting to obtain as much incriminating evidence as possible from the alleged paedophile.
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This approach is inspired by the infamous US reality TV show of the 2000s To Catch a Predator, hosted by Chris Hansen.
“It really is the blueprint in terms of modus operandi,” says Gayer. “Advocates of vigilante justice are reviving these punitive excesses, driven by a desire to put on a show.”
But where Hansen’s programme limited itself to a verbal confrontation between the presenter and his target, before the latter was handed over to the police, the new paedophile hunters do not hesitate to resort to physical violence.
Footage of such assaults has become increasingly common in recent years. A 2025 New York Times investigation documented more than “170 violent attacks carried out by vigilante paedophile hunters since 2023”. All these assaults were filmed and broadcast, sometimes live, on social media.
As well as potential issues around judicial procedure and the inadmissibility of evidence gathered by vigilantes, there is the risk of seriously injuring or even killing the alleged paedophile – all of which could deprive victims of the chance to see justice done.
To Catch a Predator was taken off air permanently in 2008, following the suicide of one of the individuals implicated in the programme.
This article has been adapted from the original version in French by Jean-Baptiste Breen.
