3 social media witch hunts in 2016 that went very wrong

Pitchforks and torches may be a thing of the past, but witch hunts over cyberspace are still thriving. The baying mob is alive and well and just as bloodthirsty as ever. Only now it’s from the behind a keyboard where we throw our ill-advised, misinformed accusations.

We discuss the dangers of online witch hunts and “trial by social media” in more detail here which we recommend giving a read.

But our protestations are shouted down by the louder, angry crowds. The digital pitchforks have been pointed at the accused and there is no shortage of accusers. Just like previous years, 2016 has seen its fair share of online witch hunts gone wrong. Here are three.

The mistaken pedophile from Trail, B.C.

Many have been accused, convicted and subsequently harassed on Facebook for paedophilia or various sexual crimes over the years. But like any true-to-form witch hunt online, those accused are rarely guilty.

That was the case concerning this tale that hit the news in March 2016 that told the story of how an innocent man from Trail in British Columbia, Canada, was mistaken for a pervert by two teenage girls. While eating in a restaurant, two girls spotted a man looking at his mobile phone through an outstretched hand. To the girls, it appeared the man was taking photos of them through his phone’s camera. So in response, the girls took a photo of the man, and posted it to Facebook, denouncing the man as a pervert.

However, the man wasn’t taking photos with his phone. He was reading it; according to local reports he had forgotten his reading glasses and couldn’t see the phone when it was too near to him.

This didn’t stop the man’s photo getting shared across Facebook, as the baying mob speculated and accused him of perceived wrongs, armed only with the claims of two teenage girls. Soon those accusations turned into a digital witch hunt to find the man’s identity. It was the man’s daughter who stumbled on the sharing frenzy who contacted the RCMP to clear her father’s name. The case was investigated, and it was soon apparent the man had done nothing wrong.

So viral had the man’s photo gone in the Trail area, that another man who resembled the first was actually refused service and subsequently detained at a local grocery store after staff there had seen the viral image and confused the pair.

According to reports, the girls were later educated by authorities about how to best use social media. Sadly the same didn’t apply to the thousands of social media users who based their serious allegations and accusations on a single photograph.
 

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Surrey Creep Catchers catch the wrong man

If ever there was the perfect illustration as to why criminal investigations need to be left to professional law enforcement and not the lawless land of cyberspace, this may be it.

Just like our first story, this case also happens in British Columbia, Canada. Only now we move to the areas second largest city, Surrey. Surrey is home to the Surrey Creep Catchers, a local branch of the popular Creep Catchers online activism group where the members aim to entrap pedophiles by entering online chatrooms posing as underage children, arrange meetings with adults and orchestrate “sting operations” to catch those adults on camera, where they then post their information and video footage of the stings on social media.

Surrey Creep Catchers had managed to lure a man named Darrell, who was allegedly in the “dry wall business”, into a meeting. “Darrell” believed he was meeting an underage girl, but instead found himself filmed by the Surrey Creep Catchers team.

In a bid to identify the man they had filmed, Surrey Creep Catchers scoured social media for profiles fitting “Darrell”. And this is where Darrell Berekoff comes in, since he shares both the first name, profession and is roughly the same age as the man Surrey Creep Catchers had entrapped.

Berekoff told the shocking story to local media in British Columbia.

Berekoff’s photo and Facebook profile were posted on the Surrey Creep Catchers Facebook page and speculation soon turned into accusations. His photo spread on social media and it wasn’t long before death threats started. Even Berekoff’s employer received a threatening call imploring them to fire the alleged pedophile. Berekoff’s family were being messaged by social media users denouncing Berekoff as a pedophile.

Eventually Berekoff’s information was deleted from the Facebook page after he made contact with the page admins, but as with all cases like this where innocent people are accused of these types of crimes, there has been a deal of irreversible damage.

PizzaGate and the child sex ring that never was

Perhaps the most famous social media witch hunt slash online conspiracy theory of 2016 is the now-thoroughly debunked PizzaGate incident that happened in November 2016, shortly before the US presidential election.

This bizarre witch hunt actually involved the targeting of dozens of people within the US Democratic party who were accused of operating a child sex ring that – according to many who believed the theory – operated out of a small Pizza restaurant in Washington D.C.

It all started after a WikiLeaks dump of emails belonging to John Podesta, who at the time was the campaign manager of the Hilary Clinton presidential campaign. A white supremacist on Twitter claimed the Democratic party was tied to an underground underage sex ring, and subsequently many online conspiracy theorists believed emails to and from John Podesta and Democratic fundraisers contained code words related to that sex ring. For example, emails containing the term “cheese pizza” were believed to be discussing “child pornography”.

Claims became even more bizarre, and several Washington D.C. restaurants became caught up in the increasingly bizarre theories. Specifically, Comet Ping Pong, a Washington Pizzeria owned by James Alefantis became the target for many accusations simply because Alefantis featured in some of Podesta’s emails. It was this connection that led many online to believe that a child sex ring was being operated out of his restaurant, and the online speculation, accusations and protests had begun. Never mind the lack of any victim reports, hard evidence or the illogical conclusion that the DNC were operating an illegal underage sex ring from a local pizzeria. The mob had emails containing code words.

Alefantis and his staff were inundated with both protesters and threats of violence that accumulated with a December shooting when a man who believed child slaves were being harboured in the restaurant took a gun to the location during a “self-investigation”. Edgar Maddison fired three shots at Comet Ping Pong. Luckily no one was injured and Maddison was arrested by police without incident. Another man was arrested for making death threats.

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All three of these stories highlight the inherent dangers of disseminating unverified information online, as well as open speculation that includes the personal information of others. Online witch hunts are dangerous, especially to the people at the business end of them .They can have real world consequences, and those responsible for them leave themselves vulnerable to lawsuits or criminal damage. The consequences for those targeted by them can be much worse.