6/11/2017 – Jason Nassr is an activist based out of Ontario Canada. He coaches people in legal matters and is passionate about environmental issues. Yet, he may be most widely known for his other activities. Nassr has an online presence that targets pedophile sexual predators. Here is the first part of his story, as told to Slickster Magazine.
Slickster Magazine – Is there any information, or misinformation about you online that you’d like to dispel upfront?
Justin Nassr – Right off the top, I want to clarify; Some people see me as vigilante. I don’t see myself as a vigilante. For me, that term is really derogatory. I am nobody that dispenses justice. I am nobody to decide the fate of the these people that I capture on video or any other means. For the most part, I kind of want to walk away from that term. People can feel use to it all they want, but for me, I don’t think it works for me personally.
So you will talk to these people. You will find them, warn them, but as far as any type of ‘scales of justice‘, that is entirely not you.
Right. I find that people like Justin Payne, who call themselves ‘vigilante pedophile hunters’, I think that is a really powerful thing to get mixed up in. I recently saw a video of one of Payne’s bodyguards talking about how he and Payne were in a bar together socially on their personal time, and Payne was going around to people and saying basically, “Do you know who I am? I’m Justin Payne” and shit like that. It was befitting of what I see his character as. He describes this as the ‘Payneful Truth’, he wears a sweatshirt with his own name and logo on it, and this is just not me. I don’t see myself as these other people who do this. It’s kind of a shame that there are so many people who are doing this and not a truly organized movement.
You’re a lawyer, correct? That is your main profession?
No, actually, I am called a legal coach. I volunteer with a non-profit organization and we help people who represent themselves in legal matters. The stuff that we do is primarily teaching people about the law, teaching about the how to talk to judges better people… people who are representing themselves in legal matters that don’t have legal representation. People that can’t afford a lawyer, for whatever reason, and they don’t qualify for a legal aid program.
You’re not a vigilante. Would you consider yourself a crusader?
(laughs). I guess that would be defined best as what we define as The Crusade. The Crusade, for me, is about education. Most people see the stuff that I do as some sort of punitive measure, although people go pretty hard on me that I don’t report stuff to the police, for the most part. So, The Crusade is about education, so in that regard, yes, I am a crusader. I am very passionate about educating children.
You mentioned that you don’t report your activities to the police. On other Youtube channels, their channel will be shut down or the police will attempt to intervene with what they are doing. Have you experienced this in Canada? Have the law enforcement authorities in any way contacted you, or asked you to stop? Has your Youtube channel been flagged, or anything like that?
The only people that are flagging my work are the people I am catching. They don’t want their stuff online. At one point it was almost exclusively that we were putting up videos on the ad-supported Youtube model. Which is basically, stuff out in the open. I realized that that was not going to be sustainable. This is how these channels get shut down, because these people don’t want to be online and there is no defense to it. Youtube supports the idea of taking these videos down, because they consider this ‘bullying’ or ‘harassing’, and that’s a shame. Most of the time I don’t think these videos are aimed, or directed, like that. They are aimed at getting these people’s faces out there, which in turn might be considered harassing with the blowback. So, we started moving away from that model last year, with some pretty successful results.
You also posted this on your website, www.CreeperHunterTV.com as well?
Yes. When we started the website, we concurrently started a paid Youtube channel. When we take a look at the paid Youtube channel as opposed to the ad-supported model, we find that people are more invested, obviously because they are paying for this content. In turn Youtube has an obligation to keep this content online, and therefor, this is the only way I forsee that it will ever stay on Youtube. Perhaps some of the episodes that you’ve seen, aren’t going to be there next week.
What about your interactions with the police? Has there been any interference, or is the complete opposite? Have they approached you and said, “Keep doing what your doing and let us know how we can help?”
Yeah, nothing but support from the police. I’ve seen and we’ve probably handled, maybe ten different police agencies from across Ontario, here in Canada. Basically, them contacting us looking for either statements or to see whether or not we were willing to be witnesses. So that has been nothing but supportive from them. I’ve actually had a sit-in with a police agency and we talked in depth for several hours about how to collect this evidence or what evidence works best for them. In the alternative that we were looking to make these kind of reports to them, they were basically trying to groom us and at the same time they were also commending us for the tactics that we have implored.
How can parents best protect their children online?
I think it starts from prior to the age that I’m typically targeting. Before puberty parents need to be talking to their kids and having good relationships with them. That is ultimately what has to happen. They have to have an open and frank discussion about some of the most icky and disgusting stuff that there is in life. If they can’t have that kind of relationship, if their child is out there seeking this information on the internet, or from their friends, that’s how children derail at their teenage years because they don’t have this trusting relationship with their parents. If parents are not comfortable enough to talk to their child about this kind of content, it will separate them and make them more vulnerable. They will seek out the attention of adults who are significantly older than them that can bring that to their lives, and that’s a shame. So, it starts with a great relationship, it starts with talking to them at a very early age. Experts say, as soon as they (the child) starts asking questions, they should be getting answers directly from their parents. If they’re not, they will seek those out online or other sources and they will essential get a mishmash of information that may or may not be helpful to them and send them in the wrong direction.
Is it difficult to find these individuals online that you expose? Are they readily available? Do they contact you? Do you have to sift through hundreds of them or is it only one or two?
It depends on the platform. So, we have a website here in Canada, www.Kajiji.ca. It is the basically the equivalent to Craigslist in America. We done some of these postings like, ‘friends wanted‘ kind of stuff, “I’m a 13 year old girl…. 12 year old boy looking just for friends“, you know, whatever. The response in a market with 100,000 people is about 200 responses. Of those 200 people about 60% [120] will continue to engage knowing it’s a child and most of that engagement will turn out to be sexual in nature.
So from one ad in a marketplace of 100K, 120 people will willingly engage in pedophilia activity!?
Right, and I guarantee about half of that [60] will be willing to meet. Of that sixty, until the account gets shut down, we will see probably about ten of those people in person.
That’s from one ad?
Yes, that’s from one ad, one dating profile… It’s about the same ratio in the Toronto area, which is a market of two million people, but obviously the volume is higher. On the dating sites, it’s a little higher percentage, probably about 65-70% of people who will engage with the child knowing that they are a child.