I have been quite annoyed at some things which I have saw online in which ASD is made lightly of. Firstly I do not think that adults grooming kids. is right but in "paedophile hunter" stings which are streamed on social media, the people getting caught always seem to have some sort of obvious neurological disorder or low IQ. It is like they are an easy target and are being entrapped for entertainment.
There are positive arguments for this like raising awareness and protecting kids however, so it is a very sensitive subject and not one I would like to bring up to fight for against the mob mentality.
The thing which annoys me in videos like this is how the filmers say ASD doesn't make any difference yet they do not understand ASD at all. If the hunters are making profiles pretending to be kids (which shows up as 18 on dating websites), then luring someone with a poor social understanding and loneliness, then I can see how someone who suffers from being guillable and loneliness could fall for this trap and go to meet the teenager even if they don't have any bad intentions they are automatically tarred with the same brush as the worst offenders.
In this video I can see that when the hunter decoy has said they aren't 18 they are actually 14 in messages, the guy being caught has used the logic that if they say it's ok to be friends then there is nothing wrong with that. We know that there is something wrong with that but someone like him might not see it that way, and by the way he is acting he looks like he doesn't understand what he has done wrong compared to some other videos where the person panics and does know that they are in the wrong. I do not know all the details but they could have even used photos of a decoy who is actually over 16 and then assumed that they have lied or are joking. Another issue with these types of stings are that the person meeting the "15 year old" or whatever may be 19-21 and still very emotionally immature at that age, yet they are labelled as no better than Jimmy Saville or Rolf Harris and their life is basically destroyed.
Obviously ASD is not automatically an excuse because every person is different and every case/offence is different, but it is a shame that we live in a society where people want to humiliate and make others suffer rather than try to resolve the issue in a more constructive way. Especially when little understood issues such as ASD are involved. I know that most people on the spectrum know that this is wrong but I seriously believe that some people do not realise. If someone is talking to teenagers like this online then they need help which teaches them that it is not right rather than being humilated infront of everyone and effectively given a life sentence due to their disability.