The ‘Facebook perv’ and being scared of technology
If a convicted sex offender who'd given police the slip met a person in a pub, then went on to kill them, do you think he'd be labelled as a 'pub perv' or a 'pub killer'? I'm not so sure they would. I'd think there might be other elements to that story that could be considered more important than merely where he met his victim.
Not so when it comes to the case of Peter Chapman, the killer of Ashleigh Hall. The BBC call him the 'Facebook killer', while the tabloids (and Independent, oddly enough) queued up to reel in anguish over the medium by which Chapman had made contact with Hall:
Facebook fiend, Facebook perv, Facebook killer. I wonder whether the newspapers would have been as quick to point the finger at the medium if Chapman had met Hall through a newspaper classified ad? I'm guessing that it might have been slightly different. It chimes in with a particular narrative that appeals - the internet is a dangerous and scary place; technology is frightening; our children could be logging on and chatting to people who are going to kill them.
The Sun, among others, linked the mother of Ashleigh Hall with the mother of James Bulger, in that clumsy and unpleasant way in which they attempt to staple one story to another story in order to push their agenda - in this case, to demand 'justice' in the form of unmasking Jon Venables*.
I don't think there's a serious attempt to demonise the medium of social networking but these stories come across as cack-handed and naive. Of course predatory killers will use anything at their disposal to find victims; that's the nature of their extraordinarily rare nature.
There is possibly a lesson to be learned in terms of children being more aware of the dangers of the internet - though Ashleigh Hall was 17 and had probably been exposed to all kinds of risk in the 'real world' as well as online - but this man is not a Facebook perv, or Facebook killer, or Facebook fiend. He is a predator and a killer, and used another person's trusting nature to deceive them and trick them. This is an awful and rare crime, but linking it to social networking doesn't do anyone any favours.
* James Bulger's mother seems distressed and upset by being once again at the centre of media attention and not just by the knowledge of Jon Venables's recall to jail - not that the media in question would ever blame themselves for her distress.
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March 9th, 2010 - 18:55
I’m pretty sure that if he had got in contact with her on myspace the Murdoch press wouldn’t have lead quite so hard on the story…
March 9th, 2010 - 19:12
Agreed – Facebook is merely another place where society can communicate; just like through the playground fence, at the bus stop, or in the corner shop.
There needs to be (and by and large I’d argue that there is) education about ‘taking sweets from strangers’ in both the real and the virtual world, but portraying the internet as some exceptionally dark and inherently evil skulking ground for PAEDOPHILES!!! is neither particularly constructive nor pragmatic in this respect.
March 9th, 2010 - 19:17
very good point Toby
March 9th, 2010 - 20:03
I don’t think there’s a serious attempt to demonise the medium of social networking … This is an awful and rare crime, but linking it to social networking doesn’t do anyone any favours
Well, it does help a bit if your agenda includes making the internet less free (whether in financial or communication terms) and pushing for a nice Informational Commons Enclosure Act to protect the right sort of people.
March 9th, 2010 - 20:59
On a similar line, Doug Stanhope on MySpace Pedophiles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8APlx9btTn8
March 10th, 2010 - 00:24
Not forgetting of course, News Corp owns rival MySpace.
March 10th, 2010 - 08:31
Indeed. It also strikes me as odd that the “powers that be” seem to think that Facebook adding a “Report” button will stop this sort of thing from happening. Facebook already has a system for reporting abuse, and this girl didn’t use it, because she trusted the man to be who he said he was. How would a different button with the same function make any difference if people are being taken in by predators like this?
March 10th, 2010 - 08:32
Ah yes, Jon Venables a.k.a. “The Shopping Centre Killer”…
March 10th, 2010 - 08:40
The DM yesterday were in fury about a facebook page that wrongly names a man as being the new identity of Jon Venables.
They seemed confused as to how to report it in that they desperatly want Venables identity unmasked but when someone on FB tries to do that they are calling it pretty much evil for accusing an innocent man and putting his life in danger…which obviously would never happen if a newspaper revealed it because their research is so thorough
March 10th, 2010 - 11:19
Yeah, NewsCorp would never refer to MySpace killers.
Oh wait – http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article2827009.ece
(Of course they would love to have a MySpace killer, just to remind people that it exists).
And this idea that people are deliberately pushing some kind of clever-clever anti-internets agenda is somewhat paranoid, as well as being pandering to your audience and scaremongering itself. Don’t worry, they’re not trying to take your tubes from you. You’re not brave to take a stand against this. They just tend to pick the most obvious aspect of a murder case to make it stand out in the headline and to fill space. You know, motorway killer, pub killer, lonely hearts killer, supermarket killer…
March 10th, 2010 - 11:28
I still love the Mail headline for this;
‘Who could YOUR child be talking to?’
YOUR child. YOU. They’re probably dead already. You idiot. Look what you’ve done. Get upstairs now and chain them to the wall, in case they DIE.
March 11th, 2010 - 11:42
You might be interested to know that they’ve now issued an apology after one of their articles outright lied about Facebook.
(Sadly, the article I’ve linked to hasn’t linked to the Mail’s apology, so I can’t verify it, and I worry that “The web giant is now considering taking legal action against the newspaper. ” is just wishful thinking on the Independent’s behalf, but it’s nice news anyway.)