Summary

Neila Moore, a mother of three, leads a double life as a member of "La Team Moore," an anti-pedophile group that baits and exposes online predators to protect children from sexual exploitation.

Abstract

Neila Moore, a cleaning lady by day, transforms into a vigilante pedophile hunter at night. As part of the French group "La Team Moore," she creates fake social media profiles to lure and identify pedophiles who prey on children online. Her team's meticulous process involves never initiating contact and always reminding the perpetrators of the fictitious child's young age. After gathering irrefutable evidence, including screenshots and personal information of the offenders, they legally report them to the authorities. Despite the group's success in contributing to several convictions, the fight against online child exploitation remains challenging, with government data indicating a rise in reported sexual acts against minors.

Opinions

Neila Moore believes that the fight against pedophiles is crucial, as it represents the worst aspect of the internet.
She feels a strong sense of responsibility to continue her mission, despite its emotional toll, to prevent predators from targeting real children.
The article suggests that the increase in social media platforms has contributed to the rise in online child exploitation.
The author implies that the efforts of "La Team Moore" are both necessary and legally justified, operating within the boundaries of the French penal code.
There is an underlying sentiment that the public, especially parents, are not fully aware or informed about the dangers of online pedophilia.

Cleaning Lady by Day, Masked Pedophile Hunter by Night

Meet Neila Moore, an activist from “La Team Moore” who gives pedophiles a taste of their own medicine.

Image created by AI tool Leonardo AI — the author has the provenance and copyright/ Leonardo.AI.

Hidden behind her black surgical mask, Neila Moore is part of La Team Moore, a French anti-pedophile group.

The mother of three children, distinguishable by her bright red hair, makes the parents’ worst nightmare her fight: track down pedophiles on social media and denounce them to authorities.

A carefully designed process to track down and denounce pedophiles to authorities.

According to Neila, there are two types of cyber pedophiles:

The perverts who go straight to the point by asking for nudes and sending unsolicited pictures.
The “guardian angels” who fake falling in love with the child over several weeks or months.

No matter the category the pedophile falls into, the objective remains the same: manipulating the victim into sending them nudes or even, in the most sickening cases, convincing them to meet in person.

And it is in this dangerous cyber environment that the group intervenes.

Inspired by the British pedophile hunters, La Team Moore creates fake profiles on social media platforms, such as Facebook, to lure them.

Neila never uses pictures of actual children to create the fake profile. On the contrary, she uses old images of herself or selfies modified with a filter to appear younger.

And they wait for them to message first.

There are rules they always follow to demonstrate to French authorities the criminal’s true intentions.

They never take the first step.
They always remind the criminal of their young age — typically between 11 and 13.

Following weeks, or even months, of investigations, they finalize a file with evidence such as screenshots of conversations, obscene pictures, identity papers of the criminal, or even their address that they forward to the authorities.

Those citizen’s denunciations are made in absolute legality, according to the 73rd article of the French penal code. However, the efforts leading to the denunciations to authorities must respect strict rules, as the cyber hunter could be accused of incitation.

Figures on a steady rise.

Since 2019, La Team Moore has been at the origin of 26 rulings, including a two-year prison condemnation for an individual.

But despite their network of more than fifty volunteers in France and overseas relentlessly dedicated to protecting children on the internet, recent studies demonstrated that reported sexual acts against minors are still on a steady rise.

According to the report on the French government data website, reported rapes of minors increased by 62% between 2018 and 2021. On the other hand, sexual harassment and other sexual acts increased by 51% during the same period.

Those figures could be linked to the explosion of social media platforms, where individuals can look like teenagers to reach their ends.

People say you can be anyone on the internet.

And that’s unfortunately true.

I remember being in middle school when Facebook replaced Myspace as the website of choice for after-school chats with friends. And let me tell you: people who had no business contacting teenagers were sending me requests back then.

I can only imagine how this is now with added platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.

Neila Moore often describes a time-consuming mission that exposes her to one of the worst things the internet offers. “I want to stop every day but cannot,” she says. “Because if I stop talking to a predator, they will start talking to another child. And this time, it will be a real child.”