A Public Facebook Group Solving an Infamous Crime
Don’t F**k With Cats: Hunting an Internet Killer was first launched on December 18, 2019 on Netflix. This true crime documentary follows gruesome videos posted by a twisted individual which lead to a worldwide internet manhunt originated in a public Facebook group with the name of “Find the Kitten Vacuumer…for Great Justice”. A digital public can be best defined as something that creates a space for individuals to express themselves and explore social spaces.
The Facebook group created, “Find the Kitten Vacuumer…for Great Justice”, was initially created after a video of animal abuse was uploaded online. The purpose of the group was to find the animal abuser, people joined together to analyze the video and find key clues that could help pinpoint this person to a specific country to possibly find their location. Then more videos were uploaded which gained more publicity, which in turn caused many more people to join the Facebook group and lead to people from all over the world working together to find this person. The Facebook group were able to find the identity of the person and their location based solely on clues found in the videos like cigarette packaging, a vacuum cleaner, and a bed spread. This social media public then evolved into a larger public and were able to contact the authorities in Canada. Contact was attempted before the murder occurred, but it was unsuccessful. It wasn’t until after the murder was committed and the body was found that the contact from the Facebook group was recognized. The suspect in question was Luka Magnotta, who was arrested by the Berlin Police at an internet cafe on June 4, 2012. An official timeline of events in the Netflix documentary was made to give a guide to the documentary and the case of Luka Magnotta.
Publics are a very broad classification; as it can include blogospheres, social medias, and communities as a whole. This Facebook group acts as a public because it uses social media as a ground to create a place for people around the world to join and interact with each other, it also eventually allowed people not in the facebook group to interact such as law enforcements all over Canada and the TV show Rescue Ink. It’s not uncommon for Facebook groups to form publics though, in a peer reviewed article by Urszula Pruchniewska it talks about how a group was made by women for women. It opened up a public for women to be there and support other women with professional support and career development. Likewise, a peer reviewed article by Kimberly K. Walker allowed a public for those who suffer from Thoracic Outlet Syndrome to raise awareness and give support to others who suffer from it.
“Then more videos were uploaded which gained more publicity, which in turn caused many more people to join the Facebook group and lead to people from all over the world working together to find this person.”
“Find the Kitten Vacuumer…for Great Justice” was a social setting for people around the world to elaborate and work together. The evidence proving that the group did come together and work as a public is very strong. According to RollingStone, “The group, along with others online, had spent thousands of hours trying to track down a man, Luka Magnotta, who they believed was responsible for the video. They compiled pages of evidence, which they delivered to law enforcement — detailed photographic analysis, metadata pulled from numerous photographs, detailed locations of the suspected kitten killer’s whereabouts.”. The group consisted of the communication and teamwork that most publics require. According to Dr. Sujata Mukhopadhyay, Facebook groups are a part of the extended public sphere. With articles arguing that Facebook groups are a part of the public sphere, the communications in this specific group provide more clarification of its role of a public.
People from around the world joined in on the hunt to catch the internet killer. They used this group to share their knowledge on different things going on in the videos. As pictured above, someone noticed a wall outlet in one of the videos. This opened up opportunities as wall outlets all over the world aren’t the same. This allowed for people worldwide to share their knowledge of wall sockets where they lived. Another crucial point of communication and worldwide knowledge was used when a yellow vacuum was spotted in one of the videos. In the true Netflix documentary, it shows someone posting a blurred picture of the vacuum to the facebook group. After people from different continents and countries elaborated with each other, it was found that the vacuum could only be purchased in North America. This was an important breakthrough for the group because the suspect, Luka Magnotta, was found to be living in North America.
The group eventually found the identity and exact location of the suspect through months of working together as a worldwide public. Not only that, but they also had enough evidence to turn him in to the police in Canada. Unfortunately, their first attempts of contact were ignored when it was about animal abuse. Then, a murder occurred and the group worked together to get Canada’s police to listen one way or another. The main contributors to the Facebook group were John Green and Baudi Moovan, who’ve never met until over a year later after Magnotta’s arrest and trial.
“Find the Kitten Vacuumer…for Great Justice” was a small public Facebook group that evolved into a worldwide public sphere that grabbed the attention of Rescue Ink and Canada’s police department. After time, it grabbed the attention of many Netflix users when it was created into a true crime documentary called “Don’t F**k With Cats”. The group was only able to solve the crime by acting as a public. It took communication skills and teamwork from people across the world to put an end to Luka Magnotta. The group was always a public, but it grown to be a bigger public, and then a worldwide public through social media.
