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This is why the idea that it's never ok to question an accuser is really dangerous. "J" obviously discovered something that way too many people have now discove

This is why the idea that it's never ok to question an accuser is really dangerous. "J" obviously discovered something that way too many people have now discovered: if you drape yourself in the cloak of the victim, you make yourself socially impervious to any critical inquiry. We can and should be disgusted by "J", but it's less about an individual and more about a vulnerability in our system: mob justice and crucifying people outside of the legal system is a very very bad idea. And no, I'm not suggesting we should never take victims seriously, since in discussions of this nature people always want to create strawmen. But I don't think we should just take anonymous commentary with no contact with actual law enforcement seriously. There's a really good reason we have an innocent-until-proven-guilty system. False accusations can be just as harmful as actual crimes.

lkrubner 7y ago
You've got it backwards. All non-anonymous accusations should be taken seriously. The problem in the story described by this article was the weight being given to anonymous accusations, which should not be given much weight. As a general rule, justice is well served so long as the accused have certain rights, in particular: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense." Anonymous accusations have not played a very large role in the more dramatic cases we've seen over the last two years. Amber Anderson is a real person. Kate Beckinsale is a real person. Angelina Jolie is a real person. All of them made public accusations against Harvey Weinstein. E. Jean Carroll is a well-known journalist who accuses President Trump of raping her. Andrea Constand is a real person. Her accusations against Bill Cosby were not anonymous. Most of these people are well-known, and are putting their reputations on the line by accusing Weinstein, Trump, and Cosby. Such accusations need to be carefully investigated. In the past, these accusations have not been taken seriously and a new seriousness on these matters is overdue.
- Natsu 7y ago
  You're arguing different things here. They're saying that we have to question allegations, you're saying that we have to take them seriously. The way we should take them seriously is to investigate them, which means questioning both sides of the story. We will probably never make a perfect system, but we can't leave large vulnerabilities that are easily gamed or they will be. We should investigate all of these accusations and shut down operations like NXIVM. We need to seriously look at allegations by Juanita Broderick and co. But we can't believe either side until we actually investigate the evidence. If anything, we need to do what we can to make it safer for victims to come out earlier while there's still enough evidence to investigate and to take the allegations seriously enough so that they don't remain obscured for decades, or there will be nothing left to investigate when the allegation is finally made public.
- jacobolus 7y ago
  This comment would be stronger if it dropped the leading “You've got it backwards.” Especially since the content is not incompatible with the previous comment.
  - lkrubner 7y ago
    My comment is incompatible with "If you drape yourself in the cloak of the victim, you make yourself socially impervious to any critical inquiry." Victims are not socially impervious to any critical inquiry. Anonymous accusers might be socially impervious to any critical inquiry, because they are anonymous. But the distinction clearly belongs to "anonymous" and not to "victim".
    - RandomTisk 7y ago
      I'd agree with you, but only where standard constitutional courtrooms are involved. Any system that allows anonymous accusers to negatively affect anyone's life is going to be turned into a weapon against innocent people, again and again and again.
- overgard 7y ago
  I don't really have any critique of what you're saying, other than that you seem to think I disagree. My issue is only with anonymous accusations and people deciding guilt before an actual trial is held.
KKKKkkkk1 7y ago
if you drape yourself in the cloak of the victim, you make yourself socially impervious to any critical inquiry You seem to live in a parallel reality. Susan Fowler's career was destroyed twice when she came out with accusations. For the victim, it's not even an uphill battle, in most of the cases it's a guaranteed losing battle.
- throwaway894345 7y ago
  Yeah, I feel the tension with this. We have people like Susan who are genuine victims and then we have all of the Title IX “victims” and university administrators who wielded the law to ruin the lives of their (largely male) targets. Seems like due process and due diligence offer the best of all worlds.
- ip26 7y ago
  There are two realities, or so it seems. Some accusers are suppressed & destroyed regardless of fault. In response, processes were created to instead suppress & destroy the accused regardless of fault. Now cases take the shape of one or the other, depending on the context under which they are processed.
- commandlinefan 7y ago
  Susan Fowler is doing just fine - far better, in fact, than she would have been doing if she had kept quiet.
- voxic11 7y ago
  I read up on Fowler and Wikipedia says this which is very very different from your take. > Fowler's role in changing Uber made her into a business world celebrity. She has received book and Hollywood film deals and continues to work towards legislation and workplace protections for women. How is that "getting her career destroyed"?
  - HarryHirsch 7y ago
    Good for her that she got a book deal out of the experience and got on the speaking circuit. For most people it doesn't work like that. (The other problem is that labour rights in the US would be a nice to have and Title IX is the only law with teeth.)
roenxi 7y ago
One other aspect that is important to the innocent-until-proven-guilty system: literally everyone is capable of lying. Who knows how bad it gets in accusations with power differentials involved - pretty much impossible to study. I personally believe that in a family law case it is likely that everyone involved is lying. It is even more common that people are trying to be truthful but just are wrong (consider that in formal testing, people are doing their best to be right and typically get a whole bunch of things they were actively taught wrong - how much worse does it get when they aren't trying to remember?). There has to be a minimum standard of evidence before we can assume someone is guilty of something; even if bad apples are getting away with crimes. Otherwise the system can only fail.

lkrubner 7y ago

You've got it backwards. All non-anonymous accusations should be taken seriously. The problem in the story described by this article was the weight being given to anonymous accusations, which should not be given much weight. As a general rule, justice is well served so long as the accused have certain rights, in particular: "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense." Anonymous accusations have not played a very large role in the more dramatic cases we've seen over the last two years. Amber Anderson is a real person. Kate Beckinsale is a real person. Angelina Jolie is a real person. All of them made public accusations against Harvey Weinstein. E. Jean Carroll is a well-known journalist who accuses President Trump of raping her. Andrea Constand is a real person. Her accusations against Bill Cosby were not anonymous. Most of these people are well-known, and are putting their reputations on the line by accusing Weinstein, Trump, and Cosby. Such accusations need to be carefully investigated. In the past, these accusations have not been taken seriously and a new seriousness on these matters is overdue.

Natsu 7y ago
You're arguing different things here. They're saying that we have to question allegations, you're saying that we have to take them seriously. The way we should take them seriously is to investigate them, which means questioning both sides of the story. We will probably never make a perfect system, but we can't leave large vulnerabilities that are easily gamed or they will be. We should investigate all of these accusations and shut down operations like NXIVM. We need to seriously look at allegations by Juanita Broderick and co. But we can't believe either side until we actually investigate the evidence. If anything, we need to do what we can to make it safer for victims to come out earlier while there's still enough evidence to investigate and to take the allegations seriously enough so that they don't remain obscured for decades, or there will be nothing left to investigate when the allegation is finally made public.
jacobolus 7y ago
This comment would be stronger if it dropped the leading “You've got it backwards.” Especially since the content is not incompatible with the previous comment.
- lkrubner 7y ago
  My comment is incompatible with "If you drape yourself in the cloak of the victim, you make yourself socially impervious to any critical inquiry." Victims are not socially impervious to any critical inquiry. Anonymous accusers might be socially impervious to any critical inquiry, because they are anonymous. But the distinction clearly belongs to "anonymous" and not to "victim".
  - RandomTisk 7y ago
    I'd agree with you, but only where standard constitutional courtrooms are involved. Any system that allows anonymous accusers to negatively affect anyone's life is going to be turned into a weapon against innocent people, again and again and again.
overgard 7y ago
I don't really have any critique of what you're saying, other than that you seem to think I disagree. My issue is only with anonymous accusations and people deciding guilt before an actual trial is held.

KKKKkkkk1 7y ago

if you drape yourself in the cloak of the victim, you make yourself socially impervious to any critical inquiry You seem to live in a parallel reality. Susan Fowler's career was destroyed twice when she came out with accusations. For the victim, it's not even an uphill battle, in most of the cases it's a guaranteed losing battle.

throwaway894345 7y ago
Yeah, I feel the tension with this. We have people like Susan who are genuine victims and then we have all of the Title IX “victims” and university administrators who wielded the law to ruin the lives of their (largely male) targets. Seems like due process and due diligence offer the best of all worlds.
ip26 7y ago
There are two realities, or so it seems. Some accusers are suppressed & destroyed regardless of fault. In response, processes were created to instead suppress & destroy the accused regardless of fault. Now cases take the shape of one or the other, depending on the context under which they are processed.
commandlinefan 7y ago
Susan Fowler is doing just fine - far better, in fact, than she would have been doing if she had kept quiet.
voxic11 7y ago
I read up on Fowler and Wikipedia says this which is very very different from your take. > Fowler's role in changing Uber made her into a business world celebrity. She has received book and Hollywood film deals and continues to work towards legislation and workplace protections for women. How is that "getting her career destroyed"?
- HarryHirsch 7y ago
  Good for her that she got a book deal out of the experience and got on the speaking circuit. For most people it doesn't work like that. (The other problem is that labour rights in the US would be a nice to have and Title IX is the only law with teeth.)

roenxi 7y ago

One other aspect that is important to the innocent-until-proven-guilty system: literally everyone is capable of lying. Who knows how bad it gets in accusations with power differentials involved - pretty much impossible to study. I personally believe that in a family law case it is likely that everyone involved is lying. It is even more common that people are trying to be truthful but just are wrong (consider that in formal testing, people are doing their best to be right and typically get a whole bunch of things they were actively taught wrong - how much worse does it get when they aren't trying to remember?). There has to be a minimum standard of evidence before we can assume someone is guilty of something; even if bad apples are getting away with crimes. Otherwise the system can only fail.