MovieChat Forums > Black Mirror (2011) Discussion > It scares me that some people side with ...

It scares me that some people side with the hackers in Shut Up And Dance


As others have said on this board, punishment for consumers of the child sex trade is important, but if you think that the guilty should be forced to fight to the death with their bare hands for entertainment, then good god.

The whole episode is a very Clockwork Orange-style story about how the desire to punish bad people can turn us into sadists instead of jurors--that's how I saw it, anyway. The fact that Kenny's real crime isn't revealed until the very end is a brilliant Hitchcock sort of twist--it means that some viewers who sympathized with his cruel torment before will now just agree with it in an instant.

If you must blink, do it now.

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You could turn anyone into a villain by creating a law.

Eat chicken? That's now a felony because you're killing chickens in barbaric ways for food when you could just eat vegetables.

And the public would want to string you up without even thinking about whether the law is just or not.

Having said something stupid on a message board and getting charged with a felony, you'd be amazed at how many employers and people think you're a hardcore criminal just because it's on your record. They don't even think about it. All I say was that it was a joke and you can see the horror in their faces.

Yet, someone could be a huge criminal and be presently employed and trusted without people knowing about it until they get caught.

I say the devil you know is better than the devil you don't, obviously, with some exceptions for certain jobs.

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Twat speak. The digital torturers offered each and every one a get out. Do nothing and accept the consequences. A form of sadistic pleasure perhaps in mobilising a group of evil and not so nice people to be involved in things they might never have gotten involved with other than the things they did get involved with. In this episode what was the scooter rider and Green [paddy] being accused of doing. All that had to be done was allow the video??? to be leaked. As it was it seems the information did get leaked.

Be offended regarding a sort of general acceptance that the non evil might do things that seem bad to those who might never get caught. Truth is that this world is full of excuse makers and sympathisers for the evil ones. A peadophile does not change that thought pattern and who knows if looking at pictures is a sort of gateway or not. What I do know is that aggressive/aggravated paedophile attacks must have the attacker removed completely from the world. If it is a genetic trait so much the better. Considering that in the ral world out there money is offered to the homeless to fight for others pleasure why should we really be offended by nasty people taking each other out. Most of us will win in this scenario.

If it did end up that child molesters for real or in waiting got to this point what is the problem? What I feel is that the police were on the way to pick up the winner in this to the death contest. What the story told us was that seemingly normal young man who seemed a little bullied but appreciated by his female boss at work and suffered what seems like normal sisterly [abuse] was on his way to being a sexual pest too young children. The only people in my mind that so excuse this are perhaps those who might lean that way or may have been abused in close family life. Sorry that should include peadophiles as well.

It was however a rather disturbing tale when the ending is discovered. Not just outing an online wan ker.

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I was wondering if the show was trying to point out that his female manager had the hots for him but he wouldn't reciprocate because he wasn't into her? It seemed subtle. I may have to watch the episode again.

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What I don't get is equating cheating on your wife to being a pedophile.
I'd hate to see what those guys do to someone who got a parking ticket.

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The show is kind of sending a message about how obnoxious Anonymous is.

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They didn't....All that happened was his wife finding out about the infidelity.
He could've said no at any point

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it's not equal, they didn't make the adulterer fight to the death.

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But he did have to rob a bank. That is pretty risky. If there were adequate security in that bank, he could have lost his life.

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You clearly know nothing about what "security" is allowed to do in the UK. Biggest risk would have been an armed police unit turning up, but in a semi-rural location that would have been far less likely in the timeframe seen (probably the precise reason the bank wasn't in a city).

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Nonsense. Even immigration have guns sometimes. They cleared out the restaurant I worked in which was about a 10 min drive from where the pm lives. Look it up its pretty darn rural.....
If they know a fugitive with a gun is lurking about they'll get them pretty damn quick

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I think it's possibly also a matter of the hackers using whatever they can dig up on whomever they happen to ensnare with the malware removal program. That was how "they" gained access to the computers and cameras in the first place. You would assume some people who download the program have no dirt to find or use for blackmail, so those people would never hear from the hackers and probably never know they were being watched through their cameras. Some would possibly have something so small they wouldn't cooperate or even possibly "qualify for punishment" in the first place. These people would take their lumps and/ or never hear from the hackers (again). Then you're left with those who at least feel that their own secret must be preserved so much so that they will follow the directions and meet their "just rewards".

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Did you watch this episode at all? It is made very clear to us that Kenny is a pedo.... why bother showing the little girl at the beginning other than to point out the ages Kenny is interested in?!
TBH you do seem to be a bit of a weirdo!

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You shouldn't be shocked, people love to hate. I think the episode was trying to make a case that Kenny and the guy in the woods were pedophiles. At least, the guy in the woods. The jury is still out on Kenny, since he was young himself. Doing a nice deed for a child at a fast food joint should hardly alarm anybody. But people are that paranoid and fearful nowadays.

So now you have a possible pedophile (guy in the woods) vs bastard hackers, but the hackers win. With Kenny, if they just caught him in the act and it wasn't little kids, then the hackers are just bastards. I like to think Kenny was innocent of being a pedophile and just scared and humiliated at what was going on.

As for the other people involved, it sucks but this world can be nasty. I'm not talking to any pedophiles out there, but if you're an adult looking at legal adult content or just surfing the web in general, make sure to cover/disable your camera. They are watching you. They may not even need your computer.

There really are so many people with stone hearts living only to try to ruin other peoples lives to feel powerful and in control of something. They take pleasure in peoples pain. I find those people pathetic and hypocritical, as if their you know what doesn't stink.

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Seems to me taking down Kenny is like taking down the drug addict instead of the drug dealer. Were any of those other people the hackers went after the actual pornographer?

Justice in this series is never tempered with mercy. There are no mitigating circumstances. The man in the Christmas special was guilty of manslaughter not premeditated murder and he was driven to it by the victim and his daughter who let him think for years that he had a daughter who was being kept from him. The real criminals were the girlfriend and her father.

White Bear couldn't happen in America assuming the constitutional prohibition on cruel and unusual punishment is actually obeyed. That woman is tortured for a crime they erased her memory off every day. So she doesn't even know why she's being tortured.

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