6 ms·

so basically, we live in a society where anyone's reputation can be instantly, completely and forever ruined, at will, by someone leveling a rape accusation on

so basically, we live in a society where anyone's reputation can be instantly, completely and forever ruined, at will, by someone leveling a rape accusation on the internet.

rhizome 12y ago
Has Max's reputation been instantly, completely, and forever ruined?
- Crito 12y ago
  That remains to be seen. In a year or three, when his name is mentioned in the media, will people still be talking about this accusation? Only time can tell, but my money is on "Yes."
  - rhizome 12y ago
    Of course it remains to be seen, but beachstartup said "instantly."
    - Crito 12y ago
      While determining if his reputation has in fact been ruined will take some time, if it was, it was instant.
      - rhizome 12y ago
        What about completely, will that take time, too? I don't really see "instantly, completely" together at all here, because that would probably be pretty apparent, like "dead girl or live boy" apparent.
  - PaulAJ 12y ago
    The problem is that for the rest of his life this will come up when someone googles his name. Whether he is applying for a job, going out on a first date or looking for venture capital, the words "accused of rape" will be hanging around like Banquo's ghost.
calibraxis 12y ago
On the internet, I see women CONSTANTLY getting death and rape threats, with all sorts of accusations leveled at them. Kathy Sierra was hounded off the net, with threats to her children. (http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindness-weev-and-the-cult-of-the-angry-young-man http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes...)
- jsmthrowaway 12y ago
  So you agree, then.
  - calibraxis 12y ago
    (Hope it's clear that poster's trolling. HN is well-known for its history of misogyny, and this bias resulting from a male-dominated audience predictably means only certain perspectives get reliably voted up; while others get flagged. A well-known filter.)
    - jsmthrowaway 12y ago
      I have no idea what you're talking about, but I think it has something to do with beachstartup's observation about a rape accusation having immediate consequences somehow being misogynistic. You've happily ignored that women can be accused of rape via the Internet as well and tried to stage a little performance of "HN Hates Women" with puppets you've created, so no, nothing you're saying is clear to me. Yes, I'm aware of that bias, and no, it has no bearing on the observations at the top of this thread.
      - beachstartup 12y ago
        yes, women can be falsely accused of rape and other horrible things, because they too are capable of rape and other horrible things. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=female+teacher+rapists&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=female+... i'm guessing the respondant didn't even notice my use of gender neutral nouns.
usefulcat 12y ago
To the extent that people instantly, completely and forever believe rape accusations levelled on the internet and then never read anything to the contrary, yes.
jsmthrowaway 12y ago
Remember Casey Anthony? Remember how being merely accused of killing her daughter caused a national spectacle, where a large majority of the country was just sure she was a murderer? And Nancy Grace got on television and fanned it right along, studying the evidence like some kind of fucking freak show? LOOK AT THE DUCT TAPE. JUST LOOK AT THE DUCT TAPE. And then she was acquitted and the nation lost its mind? And if you ask anybody on the street "is Casey Anthony a murderer?" you'll get the answer "oh I know she is, I studied the evidence and the prosecutor is a moron?" You know how so many people want justice for the girl that now Casey Anthony has to hide, everywhere she goes, for the rest of her life? That's what people are working toward with the Internet. You should not care if someone is accused of something because accusation is an easy thing to do. Being convicted of a crime is a different story. Yet, we have an entire ecosystem of people who have built up a defensive wall around the sacred act of accusation by calling it "coming forward," and absolutely destroying anybody who speaks out against that holy act being considered as important as it is. I don't know how to fix it, either, but I do know now, more than ever, it is frightfully easy. And that a frightening portion of people are perfectly willing to spend their limited time on Earth debating something that impacts them absolutely zero, including this accusation.
sebular 12y ago
No, it doesn't work that way at all. Buzz and alarmist headlines might capture our attention for a day or two, but they don't have a lasting impact. As long as no further evidence or testimony surfaces, this will be forgotten by almost everybody within a week, and in a month or two, nobody will even think about it except for the accuser and the accused. Want proof? You raped me. Remember when you did that? Hey everybody! Beachstartup actually raped me. It definitely happened and I'm very traumatized by it. Not a day goes by where I don't encounter some trigger that reminds me of the time that beachstartup raped me. See? Nothing happened. Both in meatspace and online, accusations that aren't backed by evidence might gain temporary attention, but they won't last. You certainly can't just decide to make someone's reputation "instantly, completely and forever ruined" on a passing whim.
- jsmthrowaway 12y ago
  Not even remotely true. A friend of a friend was accused of something like this and made TechCrunch, and still, four years later, gets death threats in his e-mail and people e-mailing his employer.
  - sebular 12y ago
    You've given me no reason to believe that you're not exaggerating, nor have you given me a reason to believe that your friend's friend didn't actually rape someone.
    - Aqueous 12y ago
      "nor have you given me a reason to believe that your friend's friend didn't actually rape someone." - so it's guilty until proven innocent now?
      - dllthomas 12y ago
        There is a difference between what we should assume when meting out punishment and what we should assume when producing examples for an argument.
knowtheory 12y ago
This is one of the reasons why having adequate legal recourse is so important. The incompetence and inadequacy of the criminal justice system injures us all. In an ideal world we would simply say "where is the evidence, this should be sorted out in a trial". But given that the cops are so hostile to sexual assault victims, forensics which aren't processed for decades (http://www.npr.org/2014/01/25/266275211/tested-at-last-rape-kits-giving-evidence-to-victims-stories http://www.npr.org/2014/01/25/266275211/tested-at-last-rape-... ) and a legal system which will try the credibility of victims, it's hard to blame any sexual assault victim who shies away from reporting. In the end, unanswered questions persist.
- mreiland 12y ago
  This is a social problem, not a legal problem. The day when these sorts of accusations from a man against a woman carries the same weight with the same debilitating effects, then we can start talking about the legal problems. Until then, this is about the bias our society as a whole has against men with respect to the rape issue, and woman understanding this.
  - gametheoretic 12y ago
    (I'm more on your side than not.) What does it even mean for 'society' to 'have a bias'? That individuals in group G fare worse in situation S, all other things being equal, than individuals in other groups? If you have a better reading, please let me know. If not, we have disembarked too far from the cognitive for bias, an inherently cognitive thing, as our explanation. Look at my name and call me a hammer-nail guy, but here's what I think: it comes down to options - yours, others', your expectation of others', theirs of yours, and most especially the resulting interplay of all of the above. Human beings are the situation you put them in. You and I (and Max Temkin and Julian Assange) have a grounded reason for a general fear of false rape accusation: that option is available to any woman we've ever spent an hour with. Is any individual, no matter her motivations, terribly likely to exercise that option? No, but that's not the disturbing part. The disturbing part is, there's no recourse once they do - no options. But why! Why are there no options? Because rape is the exact thing that it is: a grievous crime whose lasting scars are emotional more often than physical. Anything else, it's different: show me the dead body, show me the stolen thing, what have you. If you're a woman, and some dude rapes you but somehow there's no physical scarring and no dna and no webcam recording and no witnesses-- an altogether plausible scenario, we can all agree-- then fuck you, says the legal system. No options. Not that the legal system has an option in the matter either; you can't have a system that sends people to jail for decades on testimony without evidence. No options here, no options there, no options everywhere, for everyone. We, by which I mean the public, tend to believe the accuser, in my personal opinion, a) because some fraction of the public is women who have been exactly there, with no options, and see themselves in the accuser (regardless of whatever the real truth of the matter may be), and b) because they don't believe their voice matters anyway. Perhaps secretly, but all the same. Your girlfriend's opinion on Ben Roethlisberger's guilt of rape will, she is well aware, have zero legal effect. But it's your potential no-option situation, not hers, on your mind when you challenge her living room accusations for lack of evidence. A challenge which she can't answer because rape is the thing that it is.
corpselord420 12y ago
we also live in a society where many many more people are sexually assaulted every hour of every day but hey some nerds might get their reputation in a kerfluffle so same difference really

so basically, we live in a society where anyone's reputation can be instantly, completely and forever ruined, at will, by someone leveling a rape accusation on the internet.

rhizome 12y ago

Has Max's reputation been instantly, completely, and forever ruined?

Crito 12y ago
That remains to be seen. In a year or three, when his name is mentioned in the media, will people still be talking about this accusation? Only time can tell, but my money is on "Yes."
- rhizome 12y ago
  Of course it remains to be seen, but beachstartup said "instantly."
  - Crito 12y ago
    While determining if his reputation has in fact been ruined will take some time, if it was, it was instant.
    - rhizome 12y ago
      What about completely, will that take time, too? I don't really see "instantly, completely" together at all here, because that would probably be pretty apparent, like "dead girl or live boy" apparent.
- PaulAJ 12y ago
  The problem is that for the rest of his life this will come up when someone googles his name. Whether he is applying for a job, going out on a first date or looking for venture capital, the words "accused of rape" will be hanging around like Banquo's ghost.

calibraxis 12y ago

On the internet, I see women CONSTANTLY getting death and rape threats, with all sorts of accusations leveled at them. Kathy Sierra was hounded off the net, with threats to her children. (http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindness-weev-and-the-cult-of-the-angry-young-man http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/12/4693710/the-end-of-kindnes...)

jsmthrowaway 12y ago
So you agree, then.
- calibraxis 12y ago
  (Hope it's clear that poster's trolling. HN is well-known for its history of misogyny, and this bias resulting from a male-dominated audience predictably means only certain perspectives get reliably voted up; while others get flagged. A well-known filter.)
  - jsmthrowaway 12y ago
    I have no idea what you're talking about, but I think it has something to do with beachstartup's observation about a rape accusation having immediate consequences somehow being misogynistic. You've happily ignored that women can be accused of rape via the Internet as well and tried to stage a little performance of "HN Hates Women" with puppets you've created, so no, nothing you're saying is clear to me. Yes, I'm aware of that bias, and no, it has no bearing on the observations at the top of this thread.
    - beachstartup 12y ago
      yes, women can be falsely accused of rape and other horrible things, because they too are capable of rape and other horrible things. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=female+teacher+rapists&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=female+... i'm guessing the respondant didn't even notice my use of gender neutral nouns.

usefulcat 12y ago

To the extent that people instantly, completely and forever believe rape accusations levelled on the internet and then never read anything to the contrary, yes.

jsmthrowaway 12y ago

Remember Casey Anthony? Remember how being merely accused of killing her daughter caused a national spectacle, where a large majority of the country was just sure she was a murderer? And Nancy Grace got on television and fanned it right along, studying the evidence like some kind of fucking freak show? LOOK AT THE DUCT TAPE. JUST LOOK AT THE DUCT TAPE. And then she was acquitted and the nation lost its mind? And if you ask anybody on the street "is Casey Anthony a murderer?" you'll get the answer "oh I know she is, I studied the evidence and the prosecutor is a moron?" You know how so many people want justice for the girl that now Casey Anthony has to hide, everywhere she goes, for the rest of her life? That's what people are working toward with the Internet. You should not care if someone is accused of something because accusation is an easy thing to do. Being convicted of a crime is a different story. Yet, we have an entire ecosystem of people who have built up a defensive wall around the sacred act of accusation by calling it "coming forward," and absolutely destroying anybody who speaks out against that holy act being considered as important as it is. I don't know how to fix it, either, but I do know now, more than ever, it is frightfully easy. And that a frightening portion of people are perfectly willing to spend their limited time on Earth debating something that impacts them absolutely zero, including this accusation.

sebular 12y ago

No, it doesn't work that way at all. Buzz and alarmist headlines might capture our attention for a day or two, but they don't have a lasting impact. As long as no further evidence or testimony surfaces, this will be forgotten by almost everybody within a week, and in a month or two, nobody will even think about it except for the accuser and the accused. Want proof? You raped me. Remember when you did that? Hey everybody! Beachstartup actually raped me. It definitely happened and I'm very traumatized by it. Not a day goes by where I don't encounter some trigger that reminds me of the time that beachstartup raped me. See? Nothing happened. Both in meatspace and online, accusations that aren't backed by evidence might gain temporary attention, but they won't last. You certainly can't just decide to make someone's reputation "instantly, completely and forever ruined" on a passing whim.

jsmthrowaway 12y ago
Not even remotely true. A friend of a friend was accused of something like this and made TechCrunch, and still, four years later, gets death threats in his e-mail and people e-mailing his employer.
- sebular 12y ago
  You've given me no reason to believe that you're not exaggerating, nor have you given me a reason to believe that your friend's friend didn't actually rape someone.
  - Aqueous 12y ago
    "nor have you given me a reason to believe that your friend's friend didn't actually rape someone." - so it's guilty until proven innocent now?
    - dllthomas 12y ago
      There is a difference between what we should assume when meting out punishment and what we should assume when producing examples for an argument.

knowtheory 12y ago

This is one of the reasons why having adequate legal recourse is so important. The incompetence and inadequacy of the criminal justice system injures us all. In an ideal world we would simply say "where is the evidence, this should be sorted out in a trial". But given that the cops are so hostile to sexual assault victims, forensics which aren't processed for decades (http://www.npr.org/2014/01/25/266275211/tested-at-last-rape-kits-giving-evidence-to-victims-stories http://www.npr.org/2014/01/25/266275211/tested-at-last-rape-... ) and a legal system which will try the credibility of victims, it's hard to blame any sexual assault victim who shies away from reporting. In the end, unanswered questions persist.

mreiland 12y ago
This is a social problem, not a legal problem. The day when these sorts of accusations from a man against a woman carries the same weight with the same debilitating effects, then we can start talking about the legal problems. Until then, this is about the bias our society as a whole has against men with respect to the rape issue, and woman understanding this.
- gametheoretic 12y ago
  (I'm more on your side than not.) What does it even mean for 'society' to 'have a bias'? That individuals in group G fare worse in situation S, all other things being equal, than individuals in other groups? If you have a better reading, please let me know. If not, we have disembarked too far from the cognitive for bias, an inherently cognitive thing, as our explanation. Look at my name and call me a hammer-nail guy, but here's what I think: it comes down to options - yours, others', your expectation of others', theirs of yours, and most especially the resulting interplay of all of the above. Human beings are the situation you put them in. You and I (and Max Temkin and Julian Assange) have a grounded reason for a general fear of false rape accusation: that option is available to any woman we've ever spent an hour with. Is any individual, no matter her motivations, terribly likely to exercise that option? No, but that's not the disturbing part. The disturbing part is, there's no recourse once they do - no options. But why! Why are there no options? Because rape is the exact thing that it is: a grievous crime whose lasting scars are emotional more often than physical. Anything else, it's different: show me the dead body, show me the stolen thing, what have you. If you're a woman, and some dude rapes you but somehow there's no physical scarring and no dna and no webcam recording and no witnesses-- an altogether plausible scenario, we can all agree-- then fuck you, says the legal system. No options. Not that the legal system has an option in the matter either; you can't have a system that sends people to jail for decades on testimony without evidence. No options here, no options there, no options everywhere, for everyone. We, by which I mean the public, tend to believe the accuser, in my personal opinion, a) because some fraction of the public is women who have been exactly there, with no options, and see themselves in the accuser (regardless of whatever the real truth of the matter may be), and b) because they don't believe their voice matters anyway. Perhaps secretly, but all the same. Your girlfriend's opinion on Ben Roethlisberger's guilt of rape will, she is well aware, have zero legal effect. But it's your potential no-option situation, not hers, on your mind when you challenge her living room accusations for lack of evidence. A challenge which she can't answer because rape is the thing that it is.

corpselord420 12y ago

we also live in a society where many many more people are sexually assaulted every hour of every day but hey some nerds might get their reputation in a kerfluffle so same difference really