Comment by blueflow
1 day ago
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 police and courts, let them do the job. Don't be like these people who put their signature on those letters - be a good person. The justice system exists for a reason.
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.
I think some sort of registry is in order. Like sexual offenders. One that mandates that anyone on it has to start all of their interactions with other people by stating that they are registered offender. This then allows taking necessary actions to protect from false allegations.
They do, it's libel, and in this case there was a court decision against the signatories that were in the target's jurisdiction. I have little doubt he'd also win cases if he chased any of the others in their local courts but I think he just wants all this behind him.
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.
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.
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I am only referring to getting some sort of lynch mob together to do this in public should be liable. The rest can be investigated etc; if you have two ex's (?) saying you are a predator or whatnot, that's fine, but doing so in public, contacting people you know, making 'open letters' in the background should simply be an immediate police visit and investigation possibly resulting in fines or jail. As this case is, from that perspective not hard; even if the guy turns out to be a serial rapist; that's a separate point; you cannot (well should not be able to) organise lynch mobs to deal with it.
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.
> 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.
“Communities”, broadly, can do whatever they like. Someone who was consistently starting shit stopped getting invited to my friend group’s rotating Sunday night dinner. They certainly didn’t break any laws, we just decided we didn’t want to spend our evenings arguing. I don’t even remember if there was a discussion. If they make amends they will probably get invited back.
“Communities censuring people for problematic behavior” has been an important human behavior since way before we had states and laws.
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> 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".
In most (all?) Western countries, cheating on your spouse is not illegal. But 99% of the people would say that "it is wrong".
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If you really feel that way, you should leave hacker news. The moderation here is quite firm. I can't post more than a few times a day because of Dang rate-limiting my account because of engaging in flamewars. It's not like I broke any laws, but it's their site.
Especially in countries where "free speech" means I can basically say anything I want short of defamation, no matter how hateful, profane, sexually inappropriate, or otherwise offensive, it only makes sense that a community should go beyond the limits of the law to maintain a non-toxic environment.
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It’s for (often implicit) communities to decide; communities whose members share a certain set of norms.
Further, legality does not imply correctness.
For example, it’s probably legal to call somebody a transphobic slur in many parts of the world but to suggest that trans people shouldn’t attempt to avoid or “cancel” such people is ridiculous.
And if you sincerely think that the only acceptable action to take is make a petition to change the law, I would suggest you go out and touch some grass. The law doesn’t work that way.
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well said!
> 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.
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I would recommend you asking the women in your life what they think.
The logical consequence of this would be that all it takes to destroy someone's reputation is collusion between just two people who decide to make false allegations against someone. That is, frankly, ridiculous. Inadequacy of the justice system and the difficulty of prosecuting cases where there is a lack of (or in this case, no) evidence, doesn't justify abrogating the principle of "innocent until proven guilty."
> A lot of sexual misconduct happens behind closed doors and is (I would imagine. IANAL) difficult to prosecute.
Well that’s why so many cases are civil and not criminal. The bar is much lower (“preponderance of evidence” versus “guilt beyond a reasonable doubt”). A man can be accused of some sexual act that occurred decades ago without any substantive information like what day it happened on, and if a jury says “well I believe her”, it’s a wrap.
Maybe unmarried people of opposite sexes just need to not be alone together and if they violate that rule they give up their right to seek any kind of "justice." There might be no peaceful alternative to that.
Does anyone remember how much mocking Mike Pence received over his personal rule to never be alone with a woman other than his wife? Very wise, as it turns out.
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.
Then the focus should be on reforming the police and courts, not on pivoting to vigilante justice.
Following this logic, there would be no remedy for these issues at all until the police and courts are successfully reformed. Which means much more continued harm done.
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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.
... commenting on a case of abusive allegations.
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.
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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.
> 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.
I don't think we can say that this is what happened here. The allegations were public; some signatories may not have read them and just gone along with the "mob", but many would have read them and made their judgements based on that. This isn't "letting the mob substitute [for] their own judgement."
So who wants to "affiliate" with people who are prone to ruining other people's lives on a whim based on unfounded accusations that not rarely turn out to be false?
Maybe there should be a public list of slanderers, defamers, mob justice participants and cancellers in general so we can all avoid them like the massive liabilities they are.
> unfounded accusations that not rarely turn out to be false?
Do you have stats on this?
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> 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.
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.
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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.
Leaving justice to the courts is common sense. Innocent until proven guilty.
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.
Looking at several DNA cases - guilty, until proven innocent.
Can you explain?
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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.
> 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?
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.
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"Do the job" depends a lot on what the facts are. Unfortunately, unless you were actually there, you can't know perfectly.
It's a matrix: a perfect system would always punish the guilty and refuse to punish the innocent.
Without perfect information, you have to choose: will you bias the outcome punish the innocent, or to not punish the guilty?
Truly naive to think that the legal system that is currently shielding an offender as nefarious as Epstein is the place to turn to for reasonable treatment of sexual abuse victims.
Not saying people should leap to letter signing, but it also misses the mark to suggest that the US legal system will resolve the issues these kinds of actions cause.
who said anything about the US? the article isn't even talking about the US?
it seems that the author lives in Germany and that he went to court in Britain: https://pretty.direct/consentorder.pdf
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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.
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.
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.
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> 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.
> Are you aware that here you are arguing for criminal sanctions on the order of 10 years in prison, for writing a letter?
It's about writing a letter that can result in someone else receiving criminal sanctions on the order of 10 years in prison, when that someone might not have even written a letter.
Provably false is essential here.
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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.
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That sounds about right. Playing games with this needs to be frightening or you'll have people abusing it which is not only bad for innocent people who are accused but also discredits legitimate complaints. It's impractical for everyone to "believe all women" if half of them are lying for sport.
Yes that is precisely what I meant.
Free speech is not the same as freedom to falsely accuse. Libel is absolutely illegal and has been since before the US was a country. Allowing things like this to happen means men and women formally socializing with eachother except in really limited or alternatively psychopathic ways isn't practical. It needs to stop and the only possibilities are
a) Just exclude women entirely like we used to.
b) Punish them very harshly for lying.
I think most people would be more upset by a than b. I hope the feminists and egalitarians realize that this is the pro feminism argument as the only practical alternative is to return to a formally patriarchal society. If people can't appreciate the point I'm making then I suppose we'll end going with a which is unfortunate. Everyone who doesn't will eventually be cancelled by the same group of people they're aiming to support.
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Believing the justice system is perfect and ignoring the countless failures of the justice system to punish sexual assault is pretty naive.
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.
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.
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.
Your argument goes both ways - slander is also misconduct.
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)
Why are you being downvoted? You're right.
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.
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.