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Recent perpetrators had an interest in true crime before committing an attack, that part is true. What isn’t is the conclusion people keep making afterwards, that true crime communities produce perpetrators, and that removing those communities prevents violence.

Perpetrators being true crimers does not mean true crime creates perpetrators, in the same way that all criminals having used the internet does not mean that everyone who uses the internet will become a criminal. If exposure alone were enough to cause violence, we would see a massive increase in violent acts proportional to how widespread that exposure is. But millions of people consume the same content, whether academically, casually, or critically, and never harm anyone

What Theosis seems to be doing is labeling anyone even tangentially interested in true crime as dangerous or immoral, including the parts of this space that focuses on criminology, prevention, victim-focused remembrance, media analysis, or fictional works (rip Zero Day fans). If researching violence caused violence, then journalists, historians, criminologists, and forensic psychologists would be dangerous, and true crime fans would be dangerous en masse. True crime does not magically transform stable people into killers. If it did, violence would be exponentially more common than it is.

Blanket censorship ignores this and treats curiosity as intention, discussion as endorsement, and expression as dangerous. Nothing meaningful is addressed, especially the pre-existing vulnerabilities that perpetrators consistently share, such as social isolation, untreated mental illness, obsessive thinking, trauma, identity instability, and fixation on notoriety. Those factors matter. You can’t prevent violence by banning interests, you can prevent it by addressing this vulnerability

Authoritarian thinking thrives on simplification, dividing the world into good and bad, safe and dangerous, allowed and forbidden. It feels right because it offers a sense of certainty, where if the problem can be narrowed down to a community, a topic, or a group of people, then it feels solvable: just remove them.

I know this mindset well because I used to have authoritarian views myself. I believed that strict control, hierarchy, and enforcement were necessary to keep people safe. From my personal experience, that belief came from fear and from having my own life heavily controlled by someone else. When you grow up feeling powerless, control feels safe, and you project it outward, convincing yourself that if everyone were just more regulated, more restricted, and more monitored, things would be okay.

What kind of harm reduction relies on doxxing, intimidation, and mass reporting, punishing people who never harmed anyone? When you start equating interest with intent, you stop protecting people and start policing thought

If the genuine goal is to prevent violence, there are way more effective methods than mass censorship and harassment. Advocate for accessible mental health care, become a therapist, a counselor, an educator, push for systems that identify and help people before they spiral. That’s how you can make an actual difference

Mental health work is slow, uncomfortable, and unfortunately not as fun as doxxing people, but it actually addresses the root of the problem.