Teens Attack Gays in Disturbing “Pedo-Hunting” Trend
Police in Australia say that gangs of teenagers are using dating apps to lure gay men to brutally assault them and extract "confessions."
Teenagers in New South Wales, Australia, are using dating apps to lure gay men as part of a disturbing social media trend.
A lone male victim agrees to meet a person with whom they’ve chatted on a dating app. The victim arrives at a public park and is encountered by a gang of teenagers. The teens taunt, beat, and rob victims, often using weapons.
The teenagers film the assault and often won’t stop until a victim confesses to being a “pedophile.”
The trend has become known as “pedo-hunting” in social media circles.
Screenshots of videos obtained by the Sydney Morning Herald show victims on the ground shared on an Instagram account called “pedohunting_syd.” The account has since been deleted.
They videotape or photograph themselves beating and robbing their victims before forcing them to falsely “confess” to being pedophiles to stop the assault.
Police say that four of the victims of these types of attacks allegedly believed they were meeting with an underage male and have been charged with child grooming.
However, the bulk of victims reportedly believed they were meeting with consenting adults. In some cases, the victims themselves are minors and are being targeted by fellow teenagers.
Police told the Herald that the true number of assaults is unknown and that those known or reported attacks may be only a fraction of the actual number. Anti-gay stigma, combined with forced false confessions, are believed to discourage victims from reporting the assaults, and may impede investigations, police say.
A police spokeswoman told the Herald that the TikTok-inspired assaults are being treated “with the utmost seriousness.”
The LGBTQ health organization ACON is urging victims to report the attacks as hate crimes, denouncing them as “acts of hatred that stand at odds with community-wide consensus that LGBTQ+ people are full members of our society and should be able to live in safety.”
ACON is urging men to meet in public and verify identities before meeting with anyone from a dating app, and to share locations or plans with trusted friends as a safety precaution.
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