Are these facebook posts like “beware of men taking photos of kids in this park” legit as they pop up in every town?

11 comments

1. Why would it be racist? But yeah, it’s just angry villagers with their pitchforks ready to hang the mentally challenged person. It’s probably just some Twitcher or something. Nobody fancies your fat ugly slug of a child.

2. I don’t know about all of them, but we’ve experienced something like this where we live. I actually appreciate social media stepping in and informing me, because I wouldn’t have known otherwise.

   Bloke got caught fiddling with himself at a playground, got sent to prison.

   He reappeared in the community some months after he was released and was back at it again. Got spotted by someone and was rearrested, but for some reason he was immediately released again. Basically kept doing it until he was rearrested again, and I assume is in custody again now.

   The only reason I found about it at all was because a neighbour warned me about it. Then a local politician put up a notice informing us all about what was going on and what action was being taken.

   We had nothing official from the police, even though every time this person was caught it was on a route used by children at a time when children were present.

   If it hadn’t been for social media I wouldn’t have known and wouldn’t have been able to warn my own kid what to do if they saw him. Obviously we’d had the strange danger talk several times before this incident, but you still want to be able to tell your kids if there is a specific threat going on.

3. I wonder how quickly a panic would start if a drone flew over a children’s playing field; Facebook mums would probably announce it as a pedo drone attack within minutes and demand the village reinstates air-raid sirens to sound every time a drone is spotted.

   In all honesty whilst Facebook is a great place to get local news it is full of people who love to start a panic. There were a couple of thefts of expensive dog breeds in my area and local Facebook groups went into meltdown. Whilst the thefts were genuine, lots of women were whipping people in to a fear frenzy by suggesting the dogs were being stolen to be used as bait for fighting dogs… whilst this defies any logic to stealing an expensive dog breed it still caused lots of loving owners to really freak out.

4. It’s just idiots posting to sucker idiots. What do you think OP?

5. Basically nothing on Facebook is legit these days, just assume everything is fake on there unless you have a concrete reason to know otherwise.

6. Happened to my husband once! Some woman put a post on fb – this man is taking pictures close up of my son beware! Police called. He was in fact taking a picture of our niece walking home from school and stopping at the park. Apparently he “ran off” yeah he ran because her ( my neice) mum was home early to collect her lol. We called police and they hadnt even been contacted. Thankfully she never had a clear photo to share of my poor husband.

7. Local facebook groups have been full of nutcases since they stopped requiring a uni email address

8. People went full pitchfork and flaming torches even after someone suggested that kidnappers probably wouldn’t be wearing council branded hivi jackets and photographing a road junction where roadworks were about to start.

   And apparently paediatricians and terrorists always use “real” cameras, not smartphones. That’s how you can recognise them.

9. Usually its bollocks from racists.

   There was minor furor of social media in Cardiff a couple of years back about.

   Started as a warning of an Asian couple watching kids in a park.

   Escalated to people claiming they were photographing kids, and were part of a child slave gang, amongst other rubbish

   Couple of posts that people were going to start patrols to look out for them and “Take justice into our own hands” if the police did nothing.

   Someone posted a description of them to look out for.

   ​

   Then someone posted “Um, that’s me and my husband. We’re watching our kids in the park”

   Someone else confirmed they knew them.

   ​

   It all went a bit quiet then….

10. I have no idea about facebook. But I used to go with my Sister when she had her kid into town and when he was old enough a couple of play parks. Whenever I was on my own with him, I would get people questioning it. And there is a race element. The impression I got was white guy with a kid = predator, anything else, well, we cannot criticise because we’re scared of being called on it therefore it is always wholesome and beautiful and nothing else. One or two particular experiences come to mind with that one. I had the a cop who was passing by stop while I was browsing my phone while the kid played asking me what I was doing there. I wasn’t being an asshole to the cop, just pointed out my kid. Then suddenly a rush out of nowhere, two parents rock up to tell them how I’m always there and they don’t like it. I pointed out another guy on the bench away from me who didn’t show up with a kid, but he was apparently all fine. Maybe he was, I dunno.

    I’m about to have my own kid and the thing I have learned is that as a man, you are not allowed to be alone with your own kid. I have already told my other half that we must be escorted everywhere as I would sooner not have another incident like that. That was just straight embarrassing. I had to call my girlfriend at the time (who ironically was an abusive twat) to come and rescue us and vouch for us.

    If I were you, I would make a mental note of people who are posting things like that. These are the people you want to avoid and ignore at all costs, do not involve yourself with them at all. They are dangerous people and drama queens all in together.

11. When I was a youngan in the 90’s we had to watch out for MadPat that lived on the corner, used to invite kids in for sweets.