Man Selling Son Online Draws Police Attention

from the oops dept

A Scottish man who jokingly took out an online ad offering to sell his son was visited by police after someone complained that he was involved in "child slavery". The guy says it was all a big joke, and he took out the ad two years ago to tease his son. You'd have to be somewhat humor impaired (and, I realize plenty of people are) not to realize it was a joke. The ad read: "Hyperactive kid for sale, good at vacuuming, not great at washing dishes because he's too short. Guaranteed to annoy. �5 or nearest offer." Once the police realized it was all a joke, they apparently were friendly about the whole thing, though, they asked the guy to please remove the ad.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  1. identicon
    Chris, 9 May 2003 @ 6:19am

    http://odonnellweb.com

    He is lucky he is in Scotland. In many states here in the US, the government agents would have yanked the kid and put him in foster care while they conducted a 3 month investigation. When it comes to alleged child abuse in this country, you are guilty until and often afer you are proved innocent.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    keith knutsson, 9 May 2003 @ 9:51am

    No Subject Given

    this is really disturbing or a sick joke

    link to this | view in thread ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.