Trigger warning: discussion of child abuse and sexual assault
Most longtime Kossacks know that I have less than zero tolerance for those who prey on children. There’s a good reason they rank among the lowest of the low on the social scale, both outside and behind the prison walls. And yet, I am well aware that even the worst of the worst still have rights that must be respected. That’s why when Libs of Tik Tok, alias Chaya Raichik, highlighted two women who almost certainly don’t belong within an area code of children, I was in an odd spot. As I note on my Substack, given the documented history of threats and harassment linked to Libs of Tik Tok’s posts, I found myself having two concerns. Like anyone with an iota of decency, I was concerned for the safety and well-being of any kids who were near these women. But as someone who is concerned that we as a nation are forgetting that no one is below the law, I was also concerned that Libs of Tik Tok’s posts could potentially lead to these kids being denied justice.
As most of us know, the people highlighted in Libs of Tik Tok’s posts have frequently been the targets of harassment and threats, including bomb threats. A study in late 2022 by Task Force Butler found that Raichik singled out someone 280 times from April to November 2022—and concluded her tweets were directly responsible for 66 incidents of harassment and threats. When the best-case scenario is that Chaya is disengaged in a way that an influencer of her standing cannot be, that’s not a good look, to put it mildly.
That’s why I was stunned back in October when Libs of Tik Tok highlighted a trans teacher discussing how one of her students was the only one who noticed she was growing breasts (warning, NSFW). As grossly inappropriate—at best—as this teacher’s behavior was, anyone who knows Libs of Tik Tok’s history would also be concerned for that teacher’s safety. I first learned about this video when conservative blogger Kaeley Triller Harms shared this on her Facebook. Harms and her friends couldn’t understand why I believed Raichik ought to bear responsibility for any harm that potentially befell that teacher.
Perhaps Harms and her friends would have been of a different mind if they knew about the numerous instances of vigilantes who take the law into their own hands in the name of protecting children. All too often, though, they cross lines that should never be crossed—resulting in some of the worst people in the world never facing justice.
Take POPSquad, the troupe of child predator hunters led by Shane Erdemann. In 2019, NBC News revealed that one of POPSquad’s stings went catastrophically awry. Erdemann capped off his interrogation of Alain Malcolm one of his targets by filming Malcolm getting into a car and loudly reading the license plate number. Malcolm hanged himself soon afterward. Even though one of Erdemann’s cronies had gleaned evidence that Malcolm was indeed trolling for affairs with minors, any kids whom Malcolm encountered were denied justice because POPSquad couldn’t leave well enough alone.
Erdemann drew his inspiration from NBC’s true crime series, “To Catch a Predator.” He apparently forgot that series was all but forced off the air when Bill Conradt, an assistant DA from the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex highlighted on the show, committed suicide as a SWAT team barreled into his home. It turned out NBC’s producers pressed for an arrest and a SWAT action when Conradt didn’t show up at a bait house set up by NBC and Perverted-Justice as part of a child predator sting. NBC was all but forced to settle a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Conradt’s family after federal judge Denny Chin found that NBC had stampeded police into a SWAT action without legitimate cause. And the cherry on top? None of the people caught in the sting were prosecuted because police didn’t conduct a proper investigation before arresting them.
More recently, Metro-East based vigilante Kyle Swanson landed in hot water with prosecutors in Madison County, Illinois when he lured a suspected predator into his car and threatened to beat him up when he tried to leave. In the ensuing struggle, the target deleted material from his phone that indicated he was indeed a predator—thus derailing a potential investigation. Swanson had already been under fire for showing willful disregard for rules and procedures intended to make sure evidence stands up in court, as well as for innocent third parties. Facing charges of unlawful restraint, obstruction of justice, and assault, Swanson was all but forced into a deferred prosecution agreement that called for him to close up shop.
All of this was fresh in my mind not long after we unpacked from our move to Michigan and discovered Libs of Tik Tok had highlighted Long Island child therapist Renee Hoberman, who had recently been arrested for distributing child sex abuse material.
Hoberman has been in custody since October based on evidence that she shared what prosecutors charitably describe as “heinous and disturbing” child sex abuse imagery on Kik, WhatsApp, Telegram, and Discord, some of which depicted infants. She also popped in on several Kik chatrooms posing as a man and giving horribly graphic descriptions of assaulting kids. By my math, she faces a minimum of 10 to 12 years in prison.
And yet, as concerned as I am for the kids under Hoberman’s care as well as those portrayed in the images she shared, I’m also concerned in case some yayhoo decides to take matters into their own hands when Hoberman appears in court. Outlandish, you say? Well, consider how much the Venn diagrams between Libs of TikTok’s followers and these vigilantes overlap. It would be derelict not to make sure that no harm befalls Hoberman. After all, when you go from protecting the innocent to punishing the guilty, nobody wins. Perhaps if conservatives like Harms understood that, they would see that Libs of Tik Tok is doing more harm than good.
There’s more where this came from. To see more, subscribe to my Substack, Loud, Liberal, Christian. A paid subscription would be greatly appreciated if it’s in your budget; it would be especially helpful during the transition to my new life in West Michigan.
