The anonymous, anything-goes forum at the heart of the Pelicot rape case
Before it was shut down this year, the illicit and unmoderated chat site Coco had been implicated in killings, child sexual abuse and homophobic attacks
T he trial of a 71-year-old man has gripped France and horrified the world after he admitted to repeatedly drugging his wife and, over the course of decades, soliciting dozens of men online to rape her while she was unconscious. Dominique Pelicot’s confessions as well as the public bravery of his wife Gisèle have forced a nationwide reckoning over sexual assault and the double lives people lead through the internet.
As a court in Avignon has heard Pelicot’s case and allegations against 50 other defendants over the last several weeks, a pattern has emerged of men who lived publicly upstanding lives while allegedly engaging in abhorrent acts online and in private. As the men accused of mass rape have taken the stand, they have detailed how Pelicot found them and coordinated his abuse on an illicit chat forum called Coco.
What has emerged during the trial is that the scale of Pelicot’s crimes and his ability to keep them concealed for so many years would seemingly not have been possible without Coco and its administrators’ disregard for the content being shared on the platform. The site has become one of the starkest examples in memory of how platforms can result in extreme harm when left unmoderated.
