A majority of this critique actually isn't directed at Chris Hansen the person for the following reason:

My problem with Chris Hansen is that he is an actor who plays a character, but he doesn't tell the audience to make his work sound more legitimate.

How Chris Hansen the Character Creates Problems

Before I get too deep into the issues that his show creates, it's important to understand the mindset of the audience his content is geared towards. I'll give you a hint, it's not children.

It's Parents.

Specifically, anxious parents with limited technical literacy. They want to keep their kids safe and they're looking for someone to reassure them of the fact that they aren't crazy for being strict or overbearing in terms of their child's online activity.

Also yes I did just say the people who watch his show have limited technical literacy. No, I will not take it back.

The Un-Official Pilot Episodes

Before Chris Hansen started what's we know as the TCAP series, he started something else called "Dangerous Web" and the premise was pretty simple. It was an investigative report on how easy it is to get sex offenders to come to your house.

After the episode Chris Hansen would then try to make an educational segment. It sounds good in theory, but the execution is very lacking. I don't even think the segment was meant for anyone but concerned parents because it was the same takeaway each time "don't talk to strangers and buy this software!". Oh yeah, this show had scripted product placement at the end for a glorified word filter that would send parents an email if their kid typed a sensitive word like "boobs". Products like this alone don't make kids safer, they make them frustrated and more determined to find ways around the software which defeats it's feeble ability to do anything in the first place. The software doesn't actually prevent minors from seeing sensitive content sent to them. Even if the word filter applied to external content not created by the user it is so comedically easy to circumvent because you just have to call sensitive images something like "cute-puppies.jpg" and your pathetic word filter is once again defeated.

I'm not done talking about the word filter software not only because using that shit is fucking cringe BUT ALSO because counter measures of this variety and nature being sold by someone with the reputation of Chris Hansen is so fucking dissapointing.

I already talked about circumvention, lets talk about sexual education. I know it's uncomfortable, but everyone gets the talk at some point. Eventually children hit puberty and much later those children hopefully become adults. Now, if you are a parent or thinking about becoming a parent there is an uncomfortable truth you need to sit with because it is a fact of life: unless your offspring is asexual they will probably have sex in their life. Healthy normal sex with a person that they care about. So as you're sitting with that you need to ask yourself: what lessons am I teaching my child about sex and relationships if they cannot mention it in any context? That's right! All you're teaching them is that talking about anything sex related is forbidden!

You know what's more effective than clunky tech that doesn't understand context and can't actually stop predators?

A HUMAN BEING!

Before I dive deeper into this topic and further discuss my disdain, I wanna give parents a bit more substance to work with that will actually help protect their kid from awful shit.

The best way to protect your kid is to be there for them and I don't mean perpetually hover over their shoulder, you need to provide guidance in a way that fosters trust. Take every single teaching opportunity you can. You see your kid watching Mr.Beast? Talk to them about overconsumption. The key is being informative and non-confrontational. If you establish this behaviour in a routine fashion they'll learn that you can provide information that expands on their existing understanding of the world. Your other goal with this approach is to get them thinking critically on a regular basis. If you don't think they can do that then they might not be mature enough for social media use. It's not enough to just give your kid a list of rules to abide by or demands to follow, you have to take it a step further and help empower them to make the right choices on their own.

I know a lot of parents may scoff at the effort required for this approach, but here's the thing: a recurring element in the decoy story that Perverted Justice and other teams use is that the parent is absent for long stretches of time. A child who feels alone, abused or neglected will seek out affection from others. A similar concept applies to information and guidance, if you don't teach your kid something then someone else will. It is signifigantly more difficult to abuse a child who has the language to self advocate and a supportive parental figure.

I know this is a large tangent, but the content is nessescary. It wouldn't be right to shit all over something without providing positive substance yk?

Video included on this page because they make great points about child safety and guidance on keeping kids safe.

Problems with the original TCAP

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The faults of Perverted Justice

Fumbled investigations and got predators off the hook because of said failures. Run by a guy with a very beligerent attitude and ego problems.

Mr.Hansen in Modern Day

To be completely honest, the more recent activities of Chris Hansen are what dissapoint me more than the past listing of things mentioned above. I just wanted to present all the information and complaints I have in chronological order for the sake of organization.

TCAP Copyright Strikes and Subsequential Community Fallout

Mista GG and some other people got copyright struck because they reacted to and commented on episodes of TCAP

The Failures of the Onision Lawsuit

Laptop scromit fuck that editor guy Vincent Nicotra

The Onision Documentary

"Hello this is discoveryplus I'm your host chris hansen and I'm here to tell you I did all the work when lol no I did not"

Conclusions and Intentions

I think that Mr.Hansen has a financial incentive (like many people in modern capitalism, let's not pretend this is unique.) combined with a social expectation given the public perception of him as a person to pursue this work in the way that he continues to do today. I have no interest in debating wether or not Chris Hansen genuinely cares about stopping pedophiles because unless you're him there's no way to truly confirm that. I'm not here to besmirch his name and run a smear campaign or anything like that. I think removing pedophiles from society is still a net positive. My reason for concern lies primarily in the presentation, narrative and messaging that is given to the audience.

If you're going to cover something as dangerous and real as online grooming, you have to investigate psychological and sociological angles and then proceed further into asking the hard questions. That's what a real journalist does with their work. The investigation is the phase 1, it really feels like a lot of his work doesn't leave that phase. A lot of the information provided is surface level. Are there instructions given on how to be safer online? Does he tell you what to look for if you think your child is being groomed? Does he mention any website or other means of viewing sex offenders in the area? What about measures kids can take if they think themselves or a peer is being abused in person or online? His work rarely if at all answers or even addresses these questions. When your work covering such a topic fails to answer those questions... That fails victims.

Sometimes the solution isn't simple. Sometimes the problem is more complicated and you have to do more to resolve it. If you are not interested in resolving a problem, simply presenting that problem for money, you are complicit and part of the problem at that point. Chris Hansen is either genuinely unaware of how to integrate meaningful and realistic cyber security knowledge in his content or doesn't care enough to bother. Neither of those options sit right with me. My motivation in writing this is hoping to inspire a different attitude and messaging when creating such media. Predator catching has become it's own niche now so other people are doing it and admittedly making similar mistakes. I want to live in a world where no one has to worry about rapists in general, in order to create that world it's nessescary to make victims feel empowered. Every piece of media that covers this topic should at the bare minimum tell the viewer how to report incidents like the ones depicted.

There are a lot of parents that don't know how to use basic parental controls and they don't even think it's a problem. Chris Hansen could use his voice and his platform to educate people like that but instead he pretty much uses it to announce that pedophiles exist, get a few arrested and leave it at that. I really hate to see it... Like I really felt awful when I realized that...

So yeah the guy is just dissapointing, if you want to do this kind of thing I just want to encourage you to do better.💖✨