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> Nevertheless, the threat of defamation suits can stifle women from coming forward, even if they have legitimate accusations of sexual harassment, she said. T

by abhi3 9y ago

> Nevertheless, the threat of defamation suits can stifle women from coming forward, even if they have legitimate accusations of sexual harassment, she said. The accused must usually be given the benefit of doubt in cases of anonymous allegations without any corroborating evidence. But cases like these should not be used to cast doubt on the motive/credibility of women brave enough to risk their identity and careers to come out.

marcoperaza 9y ago
A mere accusation should never be enough to believe someone is guilty.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
taneq 9y ago
> The accused must usually be given the benefit of doubt in cases of anonymous allegations without any corroborating evidence. The accused must always be given the benefit of the doubt in case of any allegations without corroborating evidence. This current trend of "anyone accused of sexual harassment is guilty unless proven innocent" is not justice.
- tepidandroid 9y ago
  Careful with that kind if talk here. In this kind of social political climate logic does not always prevail. Just go look at some past HN threads regarding sexual harassment. The sheer number of people who react emotionally to allegations of sexual harassment is truly astounding. All rationality goes out the window with men throwing themselves over each other to proclaim "I BELIEVE YOU" instead of asking for the least bit of corroborating evidence.
  - adjkant 9y ago
    This is a huge straw man if I've ever seen one (and present in many other posts on this thread). To act as if there isn't any logic in the opposing side isn't going to get anywhere. Because of the very nature of sexual assault, providing evidence up to the standards of the US criminal legal system is very hard to do. It likely means that more harassers get off and very few get wrongful sentences. The logic in supporting a standard that requires less than the US criminal legal system currently is that it will help put away many more guilty people and put away few/none non-guilty people given the rarity of false accusations with evidence that would say, pass a 50/50 guilt test. The lack of criminal recourse leads to a court of public opinion being the victim's only option often. The court of public opinion is far from fair, which leads back to the idea of working on the criminal recourse options to allow for more victims to actually report and fix this. You can disagree with some of the premises of that argument, but it's a valid one (philosophically speaking). In this case, someone was wrongly accused, and even under a 50/50 system, it's clear the charges would not go through, and yes obviously the pre-meditated wrongful accuser should face a punishment. I think some jail time for a pre-meditated false accusation is more than fair. But a discussion and a call for a different legal standard given the uniqueness of these types of cases is perfectly logical. Instead of complaining about the public lynch mob and blaming the mass of people who likely won't stop, discuss and focus on the problems that prevent it. Like actually getting rape kits tested, creating more avenues for sexual assault reporting via a calmer system than anonymous blog posts, etc.
    - int_19h 9y ago
      > and put away few/none non-guilty people given the rarity of false accusations with evidence that would say, pass a 50/50 guilt test. We're already putting away non-guilty people, and we know about it - check out Innocence Project some time. So lowering those standards is guaranteed to increase that number. A huge problem is that in US, the prosecutors have a lot of incentives to pursue convictions regardless of actual guilt or innocence. If you give them a tool to convict more people, they will use it, because more convictions look good on their resume. And in many cases, the minority demographics are the ones disproportionally targeted. So, until the problem with prosecutorial misconduct is fixed, I don't think it's the right time to talk about making it easier to imprison people. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/21/why-do-prosecutors-go-after-innocent-people/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/21/... https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B007FA38KW/ https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B007FA38KW/
- curun1r 9y ago
  There's no such thing as guilty or innocent when it comes to sexual harassment. It's not a crime and only companies can be liable for anything related to it, not the actual people doing the harassment. So what we're seeing is these incidents being played out in the court of public opinion. And unlike the law, there are no hard and fast rules in that courtroom. There's only cultural norms that are still evolving. We should expect a lot of confusion around this issue given the stakes. We know that harassment is incredibly pernicious for those that are targets while going almost unseen by those who aren't. And yet allegations, regardless of their veracity, can destroy someone's business, career, marriage and reputation. If nothing else, all the attention this issue has gotten recently has at least driven home in people's mind that the issue is important and can no longer be ignored just because you haven't harassed anyone or been harassed. But we should stop using legal terms like innocent, guilty or liable in our discussions on the subject since they act as a subtle framing of the issue in ways that are not accurate. By saying someone is guilty of sexual harassment, you're implicitly saying that the determination of guilt should be made based on criminal procedure. People hear guilty and think "innocent until proven guilty." People hear liable and they think of monetary damages. These kinds of accusations will almost always exist on the continuum between true and false and, unlike the instance in the story, will rarely be as black and white as a legal verdict is. There are subtle forms of harassment and there are more blatant forms of harassment. And our court of public opinion should be more nuanced and be able to come down harder on individuals based on how much proof is provided. There's no sentence or fine being imposed, only social stigma and it's up to every individual to determine how much to stigmatize the wrongful parties, either when they are the accused, or in the rare cases like this one, the accuser.
  - kbart 9y ago
    "There's no such thing as guilty or innocent when it comes to sexual harassment." If there are no procedures and we leave justice to public opinion then it's nothing more than a witchhunt. "It's not a crime " It is in pretty much any modern country.
    - curun1r 9y ago
      Perhaps, but unlike Salem, it's one with some actual witches.

by abhi3 9y ago

marcoperaza 9y ago

A mere accusation should never be enough to believe someone is guilty.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

taneq 9y ago

> The accused must usually be given the benefit of doubt in cases of anonymous allegations without any corroborating evidence. The accused must always be given the benefit of the doubt in case of any allegations without corroborating evidence. This current trend of "anyone accused of sexual harassment is guilty unless proven innocent" is not justice.

tepidandroid 9y ago
Careful with that kind if talk here. In this kind of social political climate logic does not always prevail. Just go look at some past HN threads regarding sexual harassment. The sheer number of people who react emotionally to allegations of sexual harassment is truly astounding. All rationality goes out the window with men throwing themselves over each other to proclaim "I BELIEVE YOU" instead of asking for the least bit of corroborating evidence.
- adjkant 9y ago
  This is a huge straw man if I've ever seen one (and present in many other posts on this thread). To act as if there isn't any logic in the opposing side isn't going to get anywhere. Because of the very nature of sexual assault, providing evidence up to the standards of the US criminal legal system is very hard to do. It likely means that more harassers get off and very few get wrongful sentences. The logic in supporting a standard that requires less than the US criminal legal system currently is that it will help put away many more guilty people and put away few/none non-guilty people given the rarity of false accusations with evidence that would say, pass a 50/50 guilt test. The lack of criminal recourse leads to a court of public opinion being the victim's only option often. The court of public opinion is far from fair, which leads back to the idea of working on the criminal recourse options to allow for more victims to actually report and fix this. You can disagree with some of the premises of that argument, but it's a valid one (philosophically speaking). In this case, someone was wrongly accused, and even under a 50/50 system, it's clear the charges would not go through, and yes obviously the pre-meditated wrongful accuser should face a punishment. I think some jail time for a pre-meditated false accusation is more than fair. But a discussion and a call for a different legal standard given the uniqueness of these types of cases is perfectly logical. Instead of complaining about the public lynch mob and blaming the mass of people who likely won't stop, discuss and focus on the problems that prevent it. Like actually getting rape kits tested, creating more avenues for sexual assault reporting via a calmer system than anonymous blog posts, etc.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    > and put away few/none non-guilty people given the rarity of false accusations with evidence that would say, pass a 50/50 guilt test. We're already putting away non-guilty people, and we know about it - check out Innocence Project some time. So lowering those standards is guaranteed to increase that number. A huge problem is that in US, the prosecutors have a lot of incentives to pursue convictions regardless of actual guilt or innocence. If you give them a tool to convict more people, they will use it, because more convictions look good on their resume. And in many cases, the minority demographics are the ones disproportionally targeted. So, until the problem with prosecutorial misconduct is fixed, I don't think it's the right time to talk about making it easier to imprison people. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/21/why-do-prosecutors-go-after-innocent-people/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/in-theory/wp/2016/01/21/... https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B007FA38KW/ https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B007FA38KW/
curun1r 9y ago
There's no such thing as guilty or innocent when it comes to sexual harassment. It's not a crime and only companies can be liable for anything related to it, not the actual people doing the harassment. So what we're seeing is these incidents being played out in the court of public opinion. And unlike the law, there are no hard and fast rules in that courtroom. There's only cultural norms that are still evolving. We should expect a lot of confusion around this issue given the stakes. We know that harassment is incredibly pernicious for those that are targets while going almost unseen by those who aren't. And yet allegations, regardless of their veracity, can destroy someone's business, career, marriage and reputation. If nothing else, all the attention this issue has gotten recently has at least driven home in people's mind that the issue is important and can no longer be ignored just because you haven't harassed anyone or been harassed. But we should stop using legal terms like innocent, guilty or liable in our discussions on the subject since they act as a subtle framing of the issue in ways that are not accurate. By saying someone is guilty of sexual harassment, you're implicitly saying that the determination of guilt should be made based on criminal procedure. People hear guilty and think "innocent until proven guilty." People hear liable and they think of monetary damages. These kinds of accusations will almost always exist on the continuum between true and false and, unlike the instance in the story, will rarely be as black and white as a legal verdict is. There are subtle forms of harassment and there are more blatant forms of harassment. And our court of public opinion should be more nuanced and be able to come down harder on individuals based on how much proof is provided. There's no sentence or fine being imposed, only social stigma and it's up to every individual to determine how much to stigmatize the wrongful parties, either when they are the accused, or in the rare cases like this one, the accuser.
- kbart 9y ago
  "There's no such thing as guilty or innocent when it comes to sexual harassment." If there are no procedures and we leave justice to public opinion then it's nothing more than a witchhunt. "It's not a crime " It is in pretty much any modern country.
  - curun1r 9y ago
    Perhaps, but unlike Salem, it's one with some actual witches.