Slashdot Mirror
Teen Suicide Tormentor Outed By Anonymous
MightyMartian writes "From the CBC: 'The tragic story of B.C. teen suicide victim Amanda Todd has taken another bizarre twist as the internet hacking and activist group Anonymous has named a man the group says was the girl's primary tormentor. Todd, 15, of Port Coquitlam, British Columbia, died last Wednesday, a month after posting a haunting video on YouTube that cited the sexualized attack that set her down a path of anxiety, depression and drug and alcohol abuse.' This raises a whole nest of issues surrounding the presumption of innocence and vigilantism. Should the police and the courts be given the appropriate amount of time to determine if there is sufficient evidence, or if a crime has in fact been committed, or is Anonymous right in short-circuiting what might in fact be a lengthy process with no guarantee that anyone will face charges?"
I'm not sure if that question was intended to be serious - but it very well should be.
Just looking at general reactions to convictions etc. here in NL, I would say that people are indeed nostalgic to it.
A pedosexual, for example, should quite literally be lynched as far as the vocal commenting-at-news-websites people appear to be concerned. No matter the sentence, it is never severe enough - but death penalty would be too easy. If in jail, it is hoped they get brutally killed there. If they get out, it is hoped they get brutally killed as soon as they step outside the gates. If they evade that, it is hoped that they will never be able to live anywhere, ever, again (one municipality already refused to assign housing to a convicted pedosexual, for example). There is no "they did the time, justice was served" feeling there.
That's an extreme. More mild, then... recently there was a 'Project X' type thing up north that got out of hand, with kids rioting, stealing stuff, etc. Of those who have appeared before judges so far, the vast majority got off with community work or maybe a small fine. The residents, shopkeepers, etc. screamed bloody murder and felt like the sentences should have been way higher, or that they had wished they had used that pipe to break their legs on the night in question after all. Some in a discussion panel even said that anybody who was there during the riots (instead of saying "I don't want to be anywhere near this" and leaving), should be part of a group of people who get fined by default - even if they didn't actually do anything themselves; guilt by association.
You can see some of it in comments at Slashdot as well when comparisons are made between pirating/hacking/etc. and vicious crimes. While principally a commentary on the ridiculous height of maximum penalties for the former activities, some explanation of the penalties for the latter activities tends to leave people's jaw firmly dropped to the floor as well, and wondering why on Earth people are let off so easily.
A lot of people do seem to feel that 'justice' is not being served. As such, it's not too surprising that many feel that vigilantism is an appropriate answer; short-term they get to deliver their own justice, and long-term it may force the government's hand to provide harsher sentencing options.