Cast Iron Chaos: Corporate Sex Offenders

Philosopher George Santayana said, "Fanaticism consists in redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim." So it is with the folks at Perverted Justice, whose online crusade against "pedophiles" has become an obsession…especially in the case of their founder and de facto spokesperson, "Xavier von Erck." Perverted Justice (or PeeJ)'s crusade won them some fans, and some enemies as well when their tactics began to resemble cyber-bullying. Von Erck in particular spent over two years engaged in arguments and flame wars with the folks at Wikipedia, attempting to shape the Wikipedia article on Perverted Justice into a form that he wanted…namely, an article that would do nothing but praise PeeJ and make no mention of the group's many critics and questionable tactics.

So what happened then? In the manner of all good kooks, he went off and founded his own anti-Wikipedia site! The fine folks at PeeJ founded the so-called Corporate Sex Offenders sight to focus on those evil despicable Web sites where, they believe, pedophiles stalk children online. They've certainly chosen some interesting targets! According to PeeJ, YouTube is crawling with pedophile "activists." LiveJournal is full of pedophiles. Wikipedia, the great online encyclopedia, is actually a haven for pedophile activists to push their insidious agenda and make a case for the stalking and molesting of children! (In August of 2007, von Erck was finally blocked from editing Wikipedia.)

This site is essentially an extension of PeeJ's own Web page. It posts regular bulletins and updates in their war against evil pedophiles. What's really amazing is their Wikisposure Project: they've started their very own wiki dedicated to hunting down pedophiles! This wiki (which requires you to sign up with a username and password) is building a sizable database of names of people accused by PeeJ of being pedophiles. Entries can range from detailed to vague, such as this: "Dxxxxx Rxxxxxx is a pedophile who lives in Belgium and is associated with Blueboxserver. He seems to like both young boys and young girls because he is currently active on BoySky and BoyHome, but also hosts sites of young girls topless. He also used to post to boylover.net." This article has this person's known email addresses and instant messaging addresses. Of course, we only have PeeJ's word that this guy really is a pedophile and that he's really been around on the sites that they accuse him of. Naturally PeeJ is backing up its wiki evidence with lots of documents, reports verified by third parties, and statements by law enforcement officers…right?

Be sure to check out their page about Wikipedia: the Wikipedia Campaign page. It begins with this statement: "Pedophiles have long sought to use Wikipedia to justify and promote their agenda." From there it goes on to accuse various Wikipedia users of being pedophiles, and makes accusations against Wikipedia founder and CEO Jimmy Wales as having a "Don't ask, don't tell" wink-wink attitude towards pedophiles at Wikipedia. Of course, we know how trustworthy a wiki is when used as a source of information (even this one!), right? Wikipedia is automatically trustworthy and accurate, so logically we know the Wikisposure wiki is just as accurate as Wikipedia. Actually, it's less accurate than Wikipedia, because at least Wikipedia includes numerous links to Web sites information sources outside of its own wiki. You'll be hard-pressed finding actual evidence here that backs up the accusations of PeeJ…you'll just have to take their word for it.

(PeeJ's response to this would certainly be, "Whose word would you trust – ours or a pedophile's?" I'd say that my own experiences have demonstrated that the word of a fanatic can be just as untrustworthy as the fanatic's chosen enemies.)