Comment by wulfstan
1 day ago
No - and in fact in my view this is the core problem with these kinds of situations - there isn't a long established process validating a set of accusations, that if true, fall short of criminality but should result in your exclusion from a community.
Individual communities have to establish ground rules for these sorts of things to protect the vulnerable.
> And now history is replete with examples of woman destroying the lives of men with no process or consequence.
I do not accept that this happens with nearly the regularity that people, usually men, claim it does. To make these kinds of accusations as a woman tears your life apart in unimaginable ways.
By way of example, 1 in 100 rape accusations MADE TO THE POLICE in the UK leads to a charge being made against the accused. That is what we as a society are up against, and why we have to take creepy, exploitative behaviour that falls short of criminality so seriously.
> No - and in fact in my view this is the core problem with these kinds of situations - there isn't a long established process validating a set of accusations, that if true, fall short of criminality but should result in your exclusion from a community. > Individual communities have to establish ground rules for these sorts of things to protect the vulnerable.
You can never sue anyone for ostracizing you from an open community, or for the consequences of that ostracism. There's no limit on who global communities might choose to ostracize. It's so fundamental to how we group together; you always have to know the norms.
British law is famously friendly to wealthy litigants, and the High Court for awarding ruinous damages. The OP took an opportunity to sue four signatories who (from my understanding of the court order) put their name to harmful allegations that they didn't know the truth of. The four defendants paid £20,000 in costs and damages.
Unfortunately for the OP, the ostracism clearly still stands, and despite going to the High Court to sue for libel, the first-hand reports of his conduct are still online.
I don't see this as a lesson in the terrifyingly and unpredictable consequences of Cancellation - seems like more "don't shit where you eat".
You seem to think that the fact that
> 1 in 100 rape accusations MADE TO THE POLICE in the UK leads to a charge being made against the accused
backs up your claim that
> To make these kinds of accusations as a woman tears your life apart in unimaginable ways
But this is not the case at all, unless you intended "these kinds of accusations" to mean both making formal charges and writing accusatory blog posts -- but the whole reason for this article is to point out the massive amount of damage that the latter can do at almost no cost to the accuser. Absent further evidence, it's clear that in this particular case, the two accusers' lives were not at all "torn apart" by making these life-destroying accusations -- do you agree?
> But this is not the case at all, unless you intended "these kinds of accusations" to mean both making formal charges and writing accusatory blog posts -- but the whole reason for this article is to point out the massive amount of damage that the latter can do at almost no cost to the accuser. Absent further evidence, it's clear that in this particular case, the two accusers' lives were not at all "torn apart" by making these life-destroying accusations -- do you agree?
Absolutely not! Assume the alleged victims are telling the truth, and read their statements again, carefully. Do they sound to you like people whose lives weren't torn apart by the experience? They needed counselling, therapy, time off work. These sound to me like traumatised people. You can argue that what they had to deal with wasn't "as bad" as what the accused had to deal with, but I don't accept that women make public accusations of sexual exploitation casually without any personal consequences, and certainly not in this case.
The "1 in 100" statistic is to remind people of a few things: firstly, knowing that you will have to expose your sex life to the police and there is only a very small probability that anything will actually be done about it, some women are still brave enough to try, and secondly, that underneath these 1 in 100 accusations are many others who just cannot bring themselves to the point of talking to the police about what they have experienced.
I think we should give women who make these accusations the benefit of the doubt while establishing the facts, acknowledging that coming forward to raise your voice about these things is extremely difficult. If men can by and large rape women - commit a crime against them - with relatively little risk of successful prosecution, then I think it's pretty obvious that non-criminal sexual exploitation is even less likely to have any consequences for the perpetrator.
> Do they sound to you like people whose lives weren't torn apart by the experience?
I was talking about the experience of making the accusation, not the (clearly harrowing if true) experiences they had leading up to that.
I remind you that almost the entire community immediately sided with them, despite the person they accused being prominent in the community.
2 replies →
> I do not accept that this happens with nearly the regularity that people, usually men, claim it does.
That you chose to ignore inconvenient facts that do not fit your narrative is only _your_ problem, no one else's.
Figure out how to remedy this lapse in judgment, then come back to the conversation.
> To make these kinds of accusations as a woman tears your life apart in unimaginable ways.
Salient. I do not doubt that false accusations happen, but the world is generally set up to disincentivize women from leveling accusations at anyone. If you're a woman who speaks up, you may be perceived as "damaged goods" (by others or even just yourself), it turns your identity into that of a victim, your successes get attributed to pity, it may lead others to believe you're easy to manipulate, etc. It's generally very unlikely for women to wield this as as a tactic, even if they were Hollywood-style sociopathic villains, because there's almost never anything to gain.