3 ms·

> You seem a lot more concerned for the harassers' well-being than the people being harassed. The main, and most important point. Nothing has been proven. An u

> You seem a lot more concerned for the harassers' well-being than the people being harassed. The main, and most important point. Nothing has been proven. An unsubstantiated, unrelated leak has gone out and you're already assuming that something bad has occurred. If you replace "harasser" with "communist", you get the McCarthy trials. If you replace "harasser" with "witch" you go all the way back to Salem. You should share the ordering of priorities that you're innocent until proven guilty. > As far as I can tell, he says that the harassment wasn't harassment You're already making a value judgement here. He completely denies that anything untoward happened. > Yeah, if someone left a company because of a harassment complaint He also said that he left on his own free will, and Google threw him a retirement/departure party. > Sorry, not clear on how it makes me cowardly By dropping somebody who hasn't been proven to do anything wrong at another job because it looks bad for PR means you're a coward. Being swayed by public opinion on unsubstantiated charges makes you a coward, instead of standing up for your own employees.

moopling 10y ago
The key difference here is in the probabilities. For every witch or communist accused, approximately none were actually witches or communists. That is simply not true for harrassers, for instance the estimated false accusation rate among rapists is around 5%[1]. Generally people have no motivation to report what is not true, reporting sexual assault of any form can be a long and tiring process, and often carries a lot of stigma with it if anything gets out... It shouldn't be so damaging to victims, but it often is. As such in these cases it is probably best to place burden of proof on the accused not the victim. I mean, everyone does this all the time anyway. When was the last time you thought someone was guilty of something (speaking about you behind your back for instance) and you waited until they were proved guilty until you changed you behavior towards them? Innocent until proven guilty is for the courts only, people should and do act on reasonable evidence. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape
- im3w1l 10y ago
  > approximately none were actually ... communists. That sounds completely unbelievable.
  - throwanem 10y ago
    It's all in how you set the bar.

moopling 10y ago

The key difference here is in the probabilities. For every witch or communist accused, approximately none were actually witches or communists. That is simply not true for harrassers, for instance the estimated false accusation rate among rapists is around 5%[1]. Generally people have no motivation to report what is not true, reporting sexual assault of any form can be a long and tiring process, and often carries a lot of stigma with it if anything gets out... It shouldn't be so damaging to victims, but it often is. As such in these cases it is probably best to place burden of proof on the accused not the victim. I mean, everyone does this all the time anyway. When was the last time you thought someone was guilty of something (speaking about you behind your back for instance) and you waited until they were proved guilty until you changed you behavior towards them? Innocent until proven guilty is for the courts only, people should and do act on reasonable evidence. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_accusation_of_rape

im3w1l 10y ago
> approximately none were actually ... communists. That sounds completely unbelievable.
- throwanem 10y ago
  It's all in how you set the bar.