I will present results of three studies, performed in collaboration with M.Benli, L.Bowen, A.Dudko, R.Kravchenko and T.Nagnibeda, concerning the invariant and characteristic random subgroups in some groups of geometric origin, including hyperbolic groups, mapping class groups, groups of intermediate growth and branch groups. The role of totally non free actions will be emphasized. This will be used to explain why branch groups have infinitely many factor representations of type $II_1$.[-]