The parents of a 20-year old woman who disappeared after
becoming a victim of catfishing, are now calling for the behaviour
to be made a crime in its own right.
What is catfishing?
Catfishing is the term generally given to 'fake' online
relationships. These relationships are usually romantic in nature,
but on one person's side are completely duplicitous. One party
will sustain the online relationship but never actually want to
take it offline. They can string the other person along for months,
sometimes years.
It's difficult to understand why catfishers do this. Some
believe it's a form of addition. Some believe that people
suffer low self-esteem and choose fake personas to feel better
about themselves. At other times there are more obvious reasons: a
person wants to extract money from the victim, or even groom young
people for sexual gratification.
