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To prevent things like these from happen again, you should never believe allegations of sexual misconduct. Refuse to bother about this, redirect people to the p

• matheusmoreira 1y ago
  Why are you being downvoted? You're right.
• cedws 1y ago
  Leaving justice to the courts is common sense. Innocent until proven guilty.
  • pixxel 1y ago
    [dead]
  • schnable 1y ago
    Unfortunately, it is not common sense. Innocent until proven guilty is a very modern concept and still not practiced in much of the world. Human nature is tribal, we trust (or don't want to contradict) members of our groups, and we get a kind of a rush from "othering" people and ostracizing them, especially in a mob. It takes work to protect the integrity of our justice system. This applies to the members within it and for those outside of it--neither should sacrifice or attack its credibility for short term political or personal gain. It also requires proper education that focuses on the good, not just the failings.
  • Ylpertnodi 1y ago
    Looking at several DNA cases - guilty, until proven innocent.
    • cedws 1y ago
      Can you explain?
• msgodel 1y ago
  I think the correct thing to do is to punish accusers of provably false allegations as harshly as the accused would be. You might say "this will have a chilling effect on legitimate accusations" and you might be right, but the situation is bad enough now that it's created a pretty extreme chilling effect on socialization in general. EDIT: I don't normally do this but argue your point. If you continue playing games like down voting very reasonable ideas that you disagree with eventually all of us are going to come together and leave you out of the discussion entirely.
  • jimjimwii 1y ago
    This is how its done in many non western societies: if you allege something, you better have the receipts to back it up or face similar consequences.
  • pixxel 1y ago
    [dead]
  • runako 1y ago
    > punish accusers of provably false allegations as harshly as the accused would be. Are you aware that here you are arguing for criminal sanctions on the order of 10 years in prison, for writing a letter? You probably should expand on that. Edit: some people seem to be okay with this notion! Would love to hear thoughts on how stiff criminal penalties for what is in the end expressing are at all compatible with societies that claim to value free speech. Note that the author of the post does not present any proof that the allegations are false. Similarly, the other side likely cannot prove its allegations are true. So we are here discussing long prison sentences for unprovable opinions. I would love to hear how people justify that.
    • ofjcihen 1y ago
      Writing a letter for malicious reasons that had a very predictable outcome for an apparently innocent man* You can downplay any action by breaking it down to its foundations and stating it that way.
• Planktonne 1y ago
  What about when the courts don't do the job? A lot of people are understandably low on trust for a legal system that doesn't do anything about multiple highly-public sexual offenders.
  • lelanthran 1y ago
    > What about when the courts don't do the job? Well, then you'd presumably fall back onto the old witch hunt; plenty of puritanical mobs are still around to say something like "What about when the courts don't do the job". Good thing we don't live in those unenlightened days, eh?
    • Planktonne 1y ago
      MLK famously said 'a riot is the language of the unheard'; if you want people to avoid social pressure (note: not a lynch mob -- no physical harm), you have to give them a better, fairer alternative. A functioning justice system for sex crime accusations would be amazing; for valid reasons, a lot of people do not trust that this exists.
      • msgodel 1y ago
        Alternatively you could identify the minority of people who tend to start riots and exclude them from society since they're almost always outsiders who resent being outsiders.
      • etchalon 1y ago
        There are a good number of what many would consider heinous behaviors that are not crimes. Even if our current system of justice worked perfectly, we would still be left with a basket of people who no one wanted to be associated with, but whom had, legally at least, "done nothing wrong."
        • Planktonne 1y ago
          Do you have a solution to that that doesn't involve limiting freedom of association and speech?
• etchalon 1y ago
  There is no other crime where we'd "refuse to believe" the allegations, at least in a social context. If someone was accused of murder, or theft, in most cases, social stigma would be part of that. An admittedly sometimes unfair, but baseline thing we're gonna do as humans to protect ourselves. If your child was at a preschool, and a teacher was accused (but not convicted) of molestation, you wouldn't "be a good person and wait for the justice system to sort it out". You'd either demand the teacher be fired, or you'd take your kid out of the school.
  • Tade0 1y ago
    But we're not at a preschool. Main issue with investigating child abuse is that the victim's account is unreliable as they might not yet even have the language to describe some things, so we err on the side of caution. In an environment where all participants are adults it makes sense to at least ask the alleged perpetrator if they're guilty and analyse their reaction. There was a notorious case in my corner of the world where a locally famous YouTuber was accused by his ex of sexual abuse. He lost a significant number of followers and of course revenue so he took her to court and won, as her story didn't add up. Undeterred, she continued, but with increasingly wild accusations and even attempting to rope in other people. I occasionally see a new post about this drama and it serves as a remainder that some people are just out to destroy others.
• watwut 1y ago
  It is important to punish victims of sexual harassments every time they talk about what happened to them. /s And you know full well that the whole range of sexual harassments is entirely legal.
• anonzzzies 1y ago
  The people who start the cancellation should also face punishment imho. I think it's very weird you can ruin someone's life and get away with it. If they had something, go to the police. This should be immediately liable.
  • Cthulhu_ 1y ago
    I mean it is libel / defamation, but as the author describes, getting justice takes a long time and is very expensive, and that's assuming you even know who made the claims and they live in the same country as you. Besides, there may not be a criminal case / the police may do nothing. One of the accusers only came forward three years after the end of the two-year relationship; it's not unheard of for someone to realise that what happened was wrong years much later, at which point the police is less likely to do anything because any physical evidence will be gone by then, and it's one person's words against another's.
    • throw310822 1y ago
      I know this is an unpopular take, but if it takes you years to "understand" that something was wrong, probably it wasn't wrong enough for a public accusation.
      • anonzzzies 1y ago
        It doesn't matter anyway; it's a case for the police. Like all the Epstein shit around Stallman/Minsky stuff; it's simply not up to the crowds to do this. If there is actually something it has to be proven in court and otherwise stfu.
      • Cthulhu_ 1y ago
        No actually, it would be; I'm going to pull the "think of the children" card, most victims of CSA don't fully understand what is happening, that it's wrong, and what they should do, especially not in a family setting. This is why a lot of these cases, including the Epstein case or the church cases, take years if not decades to be fully understood and action to be taken on it. The #metoo movement gave victims the push, visibility and protections they needed to stop hiding their abuse / protecting their abusers, sometimes decades after it happens.
• nyc_data_geek1 1y ago
  Except, in many cases the police and courts shield and enable abuse for years or decades, oftentimes at scale. So in reality, this approach is effectively one that silences victims and enables abusers.
  • blueflow 1y ago
    ... commenting on a case of abusive allegations.
    • delecti 1y ago
      The #metoo movement was in response to decades (centuries? millennia?) of abuse being basically unaddressable. It's totally fair to call it an overcorrection, but a correction was still needed. Are abusive accusations okay? Of course not, but there are far few stories of abusive accusations than accused with many accusers. Reverting to never believing accusers is just the status quo throughout human history, which is what metoo was an overcorrection to. It's just kicking the can.
      • exasperaited 1y ago
        This is one of those things that is obviously true but goes a pale grey and fades away from view because people are uncomfortable being confronted with obvious truth.
      • Planktonne 1y ago
        I don't think it is fair to call #metoo an overcorrection. An overcorrection would imply the pendulum swung too far in the other direction, and it just didn't. There was one high-profile trial, of a man who was definitely guilty. A bunch of other accused people faced zero consequences. In total, the #metoo movement raised awareness and was dwarfed by its own backlash. An overcorrection would be what people fear-monger about: men arrested for innocently holding doors open, etc. None of that happened.
  • arresin 1y ago
    Right but now you potentially create two victims. One who is at the mercy of no system and the other at the mercy of a flawed system. At least the flawed system has a process for when it gets things wrong.
• bloak 1y ago
  Leaving criminal stuff to the police and courts sounds sensible but "misconduct" isn't usually criminal. EDIT: Though I'm not suggesting people should sign letters about people they don't know based on allegations by other people they don't know.
• derektank 1y ago
  There are many sub-criminal behaviors that should lead you to reconsider whether you want to affiliate with someone, personally or professionally. The problem is with people not being willing to decide for themselves whether someone's behavior meets this threshold, and letting the mob substitute their own judgement.
  • exasperaited 1y ago
    > The problem is with people not being willing to decide for themselves whether someone's behavior meets this threshold, and letting the mob substitute their own judgement. Yes -- additionally there's also the situation where they try repeatedly to act collectively on this for themselves but the individual in question (or a compromised individual) has power over the resulting action, right? I think it worth considering that many, if not most, of these "cancellations" occur long after serious attempts have been made to privately act that have been thwarted, often by commercial interests.
    • derektank 1y ago
      Sure. As I thought my first sentence made clear, I fully support anyone publicly airing allegations of wrongdoing and attempting to sway the opinion of others in doing so. It is sometimes the only way to meaningfully change a situation that can't be handled by the courts or private institutions. What I object to is the social dynamics of cancellation, where people feel compelled to e.g. sign an open letter, lest they themselves be viewed as siding with the accused, without fully considering the claims and counter-claims for themselves. I also object to creating a false sense of urgency, in order to to encourage this behavior.
      • exasperaited 1y ago
        Yes -- I do think there is a lesson about the pile-on. A few years back I criticised someone (without naming them) online (since the egregious, thoughtless conduct itself was online) and triggered something of a pile-on that I thought was a bit too much. Subsequently I realised that I had under-read the situation myself, and the conduct wasn't simply thoughtless at all, it was repeated, self-interested and very calculated; people finding that out was actually the accelerant of the pile-on. So I wasn't really so guilty of it after all. But I definitely witnessed what you talk about -- the "you're with us or with them" of it all, the social compulsion to join the pile-on. I will probably still openly criticise people if I think it is very merited, but any criticism needs to be tempered with as much of an antidote for a simple pile-on as it can.
• xrisk 1y ago
  1) This argument works only if the justice system is effective, which is not the case everywhere in the world 2) A lot of sexual misconduct happens behind closed doors and is (I would imagine. IANAL) difficult to prosecute. I’m not saying that one should believe everything at face value but if multiple people make such allegations it’s more likely than not that such allegations have weight. 3) Not all sexual misconduct is “illegal”. But it doesn’t mean that communities should not attempt to censor people who engage in problematic behavior.
  • lelanthran 1y ago
    > 3) Not all sexual misconduct is “illegal”. But it doesn’t mean that communities should not attempt to censor people who engage in problematic behavior. With all respect, that's nonsense. Where do you draw the line? Your morals? My morals? The victim's morals? This is why we have a justice system, so that there is one place where you can say "that is wrong" and "that is right". Forming a mob because "well, that person didn't akshually commit a crime, but we don't like the way they think about sex" is a primitive and regressive viewpoint. The correct way would be to petition to make a law against whatever act you don't like. Not to say "let's leave it legal and instead simply punish the person". No one should be facing a societal punishment without due process.
    • exasperaited 1y ago
      > With all respect, that's nonsense. It's not at all. The law doesn't cover all forms of community or personal misconduct, sexual or otherwise. And everyone -- especially businesses in Silicon Valley -- understands this.
      • bombcar 1y ago
        Exactly. Sexual relations between adults is rarely illegal but most people have issues with it between subordinates and leaders in a company, etc. Often documented in company policy or other things, so it’s against a rule, but not illegal. Same with various forms of cheating - adultery is illegal in some states; but not all. And even then rarely prosecuted.
• api 1y ago
  When the law isn’t doing its job, that’s when the citizens will decide to form a posse and grab pitchforks. … and it usually ends badly when this happens. One kind of injustice is replaced by another. But this is what people will do. Epstein? Jimmy Savile? The massive and still ongoing sex abuse scandals in not just the Catholic Church but many faiths? Those are high profile ones but there are so many examples of people getting away with sex abuse for years and years with dozens or even hundreds of victims. The wealthier, more powerful, or more famous and “loved” the abuser, the longer they can get away with it. I remember back in college being personally shocked at how many women I dated who had been raped or at least harassed in disgusting ways, as children or adults. It was like half. They told me the details and I had no reason to disbelieve them. I’ve since heard many similar and worse things from people I know. Part of why lynch mobs are so easy to form around allegations of sexual harassment and abuse is that it's so incredibly common. The allegations are easily believed.
• exasperaited 1y ago
  You're basically saying at least one of these things here and you don't seem to know you are saying it: - If it's not something you can at least sue over or is not illegal, it's not misconduct we should care about. - If no one was at least prepared to sue, we should all just let it be. I think perhaps you don't understand that quite a lot of persistent unwanted behaviour never rises to that standard (or perhaps no individual victim was willing to put their head above the parapet). Anyone who has worked in education can tell you about someone whose unwanted behaviour escaped scrutiny for decades because each individual incident had enough deniability. I have never worked in education and I can identify at least two such cases from my own experiences. (Very likely a third, and there is no way that third person would ever have seen any kind of censure for what they were doing, because it was so deniable and because their victims would not even have classified themselves as victims) There are plenty of occasions where a community quietly agreeing that someone's behaviour is unacceptable has kept them from a situation where the harms they cause can escalate.
  • blueflow 1y ago
    Your argument goes both ways - slander is also misconduct.
    • exasperaited 1y ago
      It's not really both ways, it's the same way, but yes. Usually communities deal with slander by themselves long before it becomes necessary for someone to take it to a court, and the bar needs to be quite high to take it to court (even in the UK where our laws are famously somewhat upside down on this topic)
• wulfstan 1y ago
  Criminality is a very, very high bar for removing people from a community for misbehaviour, and much sexual misconduct isn't criminal. I don't think "leaving things to the police" is good advice in situations where a vulnerable minority group needs to be protected from predatory behaviour. In this situation you have an accusation of misconduct made by 1) young 2) women 3) new to a community 4) who don't speak English well. These are all big red vulnerability flags. I would ensure that every accusation of this nature is treated with respect and investigated by a trusted authority figure in a given community.
• squigz 1y ago
  Believing the justice system is perfect and ignoring the countless failures of the justice system to punish sexual assault is pretty naive.