sometimes men are convicted of sexual assault wrongly, but these cases are few and far between, and are an insignificant fraction compared to the number of sexual assaults committed. Believe women.
edit: did I fucking stutter? BELIEVE WOMEN!
Since it sounds like some of you are at a loss for words, I just want to mention that I am a cishet guy who was scared if false accusations until I looked into how unbelievably rare they are when compared to the actual problem of legitimate sexual assault and rape cases. I’ve been falsely accused of rape, from another guy, when arguing about this very topic. I never went anywhere, other than him privately messaging me afterwards to tell me how correct I was (after getting his ass handed to him by the women in his life, no dobut).
handy guide to my positions:
it’s terrible this guy went to jail when he was innocent. truly. I feel for him. Sincerely.
This post still feels like agenda pushing, agendas which i elaborate on below.
Often, men are so fearful of the idea of false accusations of rape that they create a culture of fear in other men by posting scary stories, usually trying to redpill them into downplaying and disbelieving the women in their lives when they explain that they have been raped by other men. Survivors of sexual assualts already feel like they won’t be believed, they are often told if they will be killed if word gets out. Rapists are often well-adjusted-presenting men who you wouldn’t otherwise think were rapists. When someone says they have been sexually assaulted, believe them! When you learn that this happens to women a lot more than it happens to men, maybe you’ll understand why the #metoo “movement” asked one thing of men: believe women. It was a tag originally meant for other survivors, but when you saw more women posting it, maybe you failed to realize many of them were saying “I too have been raped” and not “I support the #metoo movement”.
men can be raped by any gender. it doesn’t make them any less of a man. there aren’t enough men’s shelters of intimate partner violence / domestic abuse and that is a real problem. Gender separation in these shelters makes sense, but if you care about men who were wrongfully abusedstart addressing this problem first and build more men-only shelters.
“Believe women” does not mean “always believe women over men”. It means, in this context, to accept that when a woman says she has been sexually abused, raped or harassed, she isn’t lying about it.
Outrage what happened to this guy is fine, but put it in perspective. Or, tell the women in your life how much of a shame it is that this guy was imprisoned. make the fear of false imprisonment for rape known and see how she responds. Report back and let me know if you still have a woman in your life. It’s that bad.
Women are tired of explaining this to dudes. That’s why I am explaining it to dudes.
Nice story… And then they all stood up and clapped, amirite?
Let me explain a little tiny thing about western legal system: you’re innocent until proven guilty. This means that they basic idea of the system is not to jail criminals but to keep the innocent out of jail.
Yes, many women are assaulted without the perpetrator ever going to jail. That sucks but it’s a hundred times better than the alternative, you do NOT want to waive the “well some are innocent, but hey, collateral damage” away. We fought long and hard to gain these freedoms of not going to jail just because someone said so, I’m not going back to the dark ages.
Having said that, any man or woman making false claims on crimes causing someone else to be jailed while innocent should serve the sentence of their victim, at the very least.
Then read it again, because you are not understanding
You literally claim women won’t lie about being raped. Reality shows that to be not true.
This, again, is why we have western legal systems where we don’t believe women l, or men, we believe evidence. Even that goes wrong every once in a while, and yes, it means that a lot of criminals stay out of jail bit that is still better than tossing innocent people in jail.
You literally claim women won’t lie about being raped. Reality shows that to be not true.
I am and have always said that yes, this happens but it’s so insignificantly small that it’s not worth worrying about.
So don’t worry about it.
This, again, is why we have western legal systems where we don’t believe women l, or men, we believe evidence. Even that goes wrong every once in a while, and yes, it means that a lot of criminals stay out of jail bit that is still better than tossing innocent people in jail.
The judicial system isn’t based on belief, my guy. It’s based on evidence.
You guys can’t rape a woman and expect to not go to jail! Enough!
Blindly believing women is what got us to this, its silly to decide someone isn’t a liar by what’s in their pants. We should instead believe whoever has more solid evidence
Here’s the thing: statistically speaking, you know a survivor of sexual assualt or rape. Statistically speaking, that person is a woman, or women in your life. All I ask anyone in this thread is that if and when they come to you and tell you that they’ve been sexually assaulted, that you believe them. Even if that person is a man, maybe especially so, believe him.
This isn’t about “women should be blindly believed” - how could anyone think that, this person went to jail, went to court first, had a trial, etc. This wasn’t a woman “blindly believed” and then put in jail. This was an innocent black man who was jailed, and that’s a bit more common. Despite what the content you consume might tell you, we aren’t living in a society where women are “blindly believed” for fucking anything, my guy. It’s understandable not to believe someone you don’t know, which is why I’m just asking you to do it for the people you do know. This shouldn’t be a difficult ask.
Just to be absolutely clear because it seems like I need to - false accusations, false imprisonment for crimes, including rape does happen. However, at least in the case of rape and sexual assualt, far more women are raped without ever telling anyone (as they are either in unsafe situations they can’t escape and/or have been told they will be killed if anyone finds out), far more women go through a rape kit examination but those kits sit unprocessed, far more women go to trial only to find their rapist (as in, the guy who actually raped them) go free, than do men go to jail for being falsely convicted of rape.
If you can, consider reading this thread from the viewpoint of someone who’s been raped, but who (for reasons mentioned above) never saw their rapist go to trial or never be convicted; who may have lost their job because their rapist was their coworker and now no one feels comfortable working with her because “he was such a nice guy he couldn’t have done this she must’ve just had a bad date or something”, etc… Statistically speaking, survivors of sexual assault have already done this. Read through this thread, full of men displaying their scrutiny for women who women who say they were survivors of sexual assault.
I don’t know the details of this case. Maybe this woman was still raped, and maybe this was mistaken identity. There’s very little incentive for a person to go after an innocent person for sexual assault. There’s very little incentive for a person to lie about being raped. This isn’t some sort of “weird trick” that “men hate” that lets women jail any guy who crosses them. I’m not advocating for any gender discrimination when it comes to sentencing. Before all that, for the women in your life who have been survivors of sexual assault, I just ask, please, for them… believe them.
Quick and simple explaination: “I’m just not reading an essay on why you should believe people with no evidence” you said regarding a short comment (sorry, reading is hard innit?) basically where I said “believe the women in your life”. You’re saying “why believe [my girlfriend, my wife, my mother, my friends, etc] when they come to me [someone they trust] and say they’ve been raped”, and that’s why you’re unfuckable. Women don’t want a guy who’s going to call into question something they wouldn’t lie about. Get real, man.
I, for one, believe in equality. We cannot say we seek it in one hand while placing another’s rights above someone else’s in the other.
Broadly speaking I’m against over defining boundaries - they are used to label and divide people. People divided are weaker.
To your point of believe women - I want to ask why does that mans word bear less weight than hers? Traditionally people leading with that mantra will continue with “don’t punish her… it will drive away others who need to step forward.” Truth is truth. Equality should be equally distributed. She should be imprisoned for the same time and provide damages for the irreparable damages caused to his life.
If we are willing to convict on just the assertions of one party equality will continue to exist. There needs to be a strong understanding that decisions have weight - even bad ones.
Cases such as these need to also be handled properly to protect /all parties/ involved. Proper research, proper due process, all of it- before anything is made public. Gossip and slander is equally damaging. If due process is followed and both parties are respected this problem is minimized.
This is a tricky discussion to navigate as I’m sure this could devolve into discussions of il intent etc… so for the sake of keeping things civil I’ll say that people, humanity in general, is capable of being absolutely shitty and nothing will change that. What we should look to do is minimize the collateral damage as best we can and do our best to safeguard against it.
I can understand that men are scared of this, but it’s no reason to propagandize about the issue. While the boys in this thread circlejerk their victimization, women are being raped as I type this, probably women you know. They won’t tell you thos because they know the men in their lives are much more worried about a false accusation - which are so rare and usually lead nowhere.
brave up, boys. women need us to be brave and to accept the reality they live every day of their lives.
This isn’t a fear thing. This a “what’s right” thing. Your statement falls apart the second you apply it to any other social situation. What about applying that to two gay men? I guess they just need to implode as they are both and neither of what you villanize and empathize with. Two women? What about applying this view to race? It just doesn’t work. Equality is equality. If it is unbalanced it simply makes the situation worse for all parties. This is precisely why I made my closing statement. Should I not defend a man being beaten because he is a man? I should defend a person being beaten because it is wrong. period.
It’s not about what’s right though, because this topic is about the number of times WOMEN are raped, (which kits go unprocessed, which MEN disbelieve). is that right? should we allow rape kits to go unprocessed and create a culture of fear around the idea that something which happens so rarely? Like guys there are women who kill their partners, wouldn’t you think that would be a little more terrifying? I bet the statistics of that happening are even higher than the statistics of being falsely accused of rape as a man.
I am making the gender distinction because in our society it is relevant. want to talk about two women or two men where one is falsely accused of rape? ok but wouldn’t that statistic be even lower?
guys should we fear ants? ants in large numbers could kill you know.
I am making the gender distinction because in our society it is relevant. want to talk about two women or two men where one is falsely accused of rape? ok but wouldn’t that statistic be even lower?
So that makes it okay? Not your problem? What about raped men? Sorry we lack ‘kits’ for that. Cowboy up.
My assertions are that rape is bad. On this we agree.
Rape accusations are bad too. By definition rape is a violation of your person, deeply damaging, and can leave someone permanently mentally scarred for their life:
I wonder if that false accusation resulted in that exact thing to the man? Nah. Doesn’t matter. Cowboy up. I’m sorry - we fundamentally disagree on this. No person deserves inequal treatment. People are capable of unthinkable acts of cruelty: sex, race, religion is irrelevant. This story is an example of that. Broaden your views. Apologists make the problem worse, not better.
You’re strawmanning my argument. Men are raped, and that’s a concern. The way society views men who are raped as less than men is a problem. Get your head out of your ass and stick to the topic: why should we create a culture of fear around something (false rape accusations against men from women) that does happen but happens so rarely that it’s only really ever brought up to propagandize?
A straw man fallacy is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be “attacking a straw man”. Wikipedia
I am highlighting your own statement and showing you the flaw in your reasoning. Your response to every single person you’ve engaged in this thread is “strawman,” which isn’t correct. A good strawman would be to say: yeah it’s a shame that guy’s situation but… (insert diversion). Ponder that for a moment.
As I said. We agree in rape being awful… as we should. My views are unbiased. We won’t agree on this.
To your point on rape kits: ‘rape kits’ are multi part examinations. They ascertain if the party had sex. They look for “evidence” of the partner. They look for indications of injuries. They record a statement. The issue lies in all of this data being circumstantial. This isn’t some silver bullet that you think it is. Being an apologist for someone because, arbitrarily, bureaucracy and resources are a problem is a terrible platform to stand on. Which of us has our head buried in something here?
If that is what you gathered from what I said you are either a troll or beyond the point of being conversational with. Either way- I hope you find peace.
I gathered that you are spreading misinformation. I gathered that you decided you has nothing to reply with that wouldn’t admit that I am correct so you called me a troll. I gathered that you misunderstood how people have been strawmanning my argument.
I replied to the most obscene part of your comment first. No rebuttle? I hope you find peace.
Let’s start with your assertions that I am spreading misinformation: quote the statement. Explain your reasoning for believing that. If you cannot? Further conversation isn’t possible and you’ll have only reinforced my earlier assessment of you.
Assuming we can clarify your assessment of my statement we can continue to play. Your move.
To your point on rape kits: ‘rape kits’ are multi part examinations. They ascertain if the party had sex. They look for “evidence” of the partner. They look for indications of injuries. They record a statement. The issue lies in all of this data being circumstantial.
Rape kits take samples of DNA. DNA is a type of evidence known as “real evidence”.
Physical evidence that is intimately linked to the case facts is called real evidence. The jury must examine such proof tangibly. Common examples include guns, DNA, knives, blood samples, fingerprints, and other material artifacts. dlplawyers.com/4-types-of-evidence-you-should-be-…
You can’t just say, universally that all rape kits are circumstantial. Doing so would be misinformation.
Circumstantial evidence is evidence that relies on an inference to connect it to a conclusion of fact—such as a fingerprint at the scene of a crime. By contrast, direct evidence supports the truth of an assertion directly—i.e., without need for any additional evidence or inference. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumstantial_evidence
Yes, the last link was pasted from wikipedia. If you’ve got a better source that says that all rape kit data is circumstantial, please provide it. Until then, I think the people’s encyclopedia is good enough for the sake of our discussion.
If you find fault in its information… I’m happy to cite other sources… but you will need to specifically point out what invalidates it.
Rape kits take samples of DNA. DNA is a type of evidence known as “real evidence”.
Very good. That aligns with what I said.
You can’t just say, universally that all rape kits are circumstantial. Doing so would be misinformation.
Yes, the last link was pasted from wikipedia. If you’ve got a better source that says that all rape kit data is circumstantial, please provide it.
All evidence is circumstantial. DNA confirms the presence of a person. Hair and bodily fluids all indicate the presence of a person. Certainly that can include sex. Sex however does not immediately indicate rape - thus circumstances matter. This defines it as (wait for it) circumstantial evidence.
Now that we have clarified this basic fact: I cannot help but notice you have somehow not pointed out one incorrect thing with my statement. I’ll forgive you for getting lost in your hand waving- care to try again?
Providing a link and saying “educate yourself” does not refute this claim. The link doesn’t even mention circumstantial evidence, which is what you are claiming.
Please provide evidence of your claim that all rape kits are circumstantial evidence.
If you find fault in its information… I’m happy to cite other sources… but you will need to specifically point out what invalidates it.
You only need to cite one reputable source. But it has to actually validate your claim is the thing.
All evidence is circumstantial. DNA confirms the presence of a person. Hair and bodily fluids all indicate the presence of a person. Certainly that can include sex. Sex however does not immediately indicate rape - thus circumstances matter. This defines it as (wait for it) circumstantial evidence.
So your new claim is that all evidence is circumstantial. Ok, you now have 2 claims to prove.
Now that we have clarified this basic fact: I cannot help but notice you have somehow not pointed out one incorrect thing with my statement. I’ll forgive you for getting lost in your hand waving- care to try again?
Well, you haven’t done that yet, but keep trying, champ!
I’ll be happy to reengage you if you can provide something worth discussing. But I could have the current discussion path you’ve fallen down with a parrot.
Considering your fractured view of the world I’m impressed you managed to find your way back.
dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women.
Equality is none of these things. Further- I respect women enough to not impose the view that they are some “delicate flower that must be sheltered” upon them. Doing so is a disservice, and frankly, is looking down on them.
You continue to strawman my positions. You are claiming that we should treat “women as delicate flowers” which is your words, not mine. I never said anything of the sort.
When your daughter tells you that she’s been raped, I want you to not have to take her to court to prove that she’s been raped. I want you to believe her, because she’s telling the truth.
You guys really enjoy showing the internet your red flags, don’t you?
Please message me privately if you want any advice on wooing women in your life, or just having sex. It’s crystal clear you need the advice. You don’t deserve it, but you sure as hell need it.
I’ve lost count of how many times you’ve constructed the very thing you’re suggesting I’ve used.
A reminder:
A straw man fallacy is the informal fallacy of refuting an argument different from the one actually under discussion, while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. One who engages in this fallacy is said to be “attacking a straw man”. Wikipedia
The example here is constantly “constructing” a scenario such as, in this case, a party close to me is getting raped… “constructing” a situation from that and attacking it instead.
Continue wishing rape on women you claim to protect. You have demonstrated, once again, you are a beacon of light for all womankind. Bravo.
wooing women, advice, etc.
I’m good friend. You have as much a chance of explaining astrophysics to me as providing good advice on any of that. Both are equally outside your grasp.
…And I’m happy to continue to keep this out of DMs as you seem to enjoy the public humiliation.
How hard is it to understand my main position, bro?
“most women have been raped. most men don’t believe it when women are raped because these old posts get trotted out. Believe women”
That’s it.
It’s not:
“women need to be treated differently”
“women should be ‘more equal’ than men”
“what the woman says in the courtroom goes”
“wishing rape on women” (what the absolute hell man?!)
And my guy…
It’s super embarrasing that I have to keep pointing this out to you. When you misrepresent my positions into positions that are easier for you to attack such as the ones you’ve pointed out - see “it’s not” list above), you are building up a strawman to attack because you don’t want to address my points.
You’ve yet to address my points. You’re continously strawmanning my points into ones you want to attack and attacking those, then you’re defining the very thing I’m telling you that you’re doing… and you’re still not seeing how you’re doing it.
Amazing, my guy. And you think I’m the one who should be embarassed.
Offer recinded. You’re going to have to stumble through that shit when you’re older, kid. Maybe once you reach highschool.
I’ll be brief: if you took one quarter the time it took to write out that manifestation of self pity and anger and looked around at this thread- you’ve done nothing but pick fights and make accusations. The responses you’ve gotten are a clear indication of something. Maybe think about that.
I’d continue entertaining this conversation, but in my experience with children- they reach a point where they abandon reason and argue just for the sake of it.
Take some time to factor in you’ve had to make massive edits and ask yourself why that is. Perhaps objectively read what you’ve been writing. I won’t be around for it but I sincerely hope you learn from it. Find peace, friend.
It’s overly clear to me that you the only women who are going to exist in your life are the ones you rape and sexually abuse. You’ll never find peace, and people like me will make sure that you don’t.
I asked you to believe your wife, your daughter, your mother, your grandmother when they tell you that they have been raped.
Statistically, you already know women who have been raped or sexually assaulted. I am asking you to stop being a monster, trying to get them to go to court just to prove to you that they’ve been raped.
I am simply asking you to believe them, because they’ve been raped and they are asking for your support.
And you’re fighting me on this, calling me a white knight, saying that I wish women to be raped, etc. The only thing I can gather from this is that you’re a rapist appoligist because you are infact a rapist.
“Some of you will be wrongly convicted, but that’s a risk I’m willing to take.” shouldn’t be the goal my dude. You’ve gotta try harder. Don’t just believe women. Believe evidence. Believe facts. Leave hearsay out of it. This is not a difficult concept.
Then why aren’t we discussing that? But also, what are you doing to put yourself in the situation where you could be falsely accused of murder (besides having an offwhite skin tone, of course)?
My point being, we should also be afraid of stray bullets coming from the sky. Or cardiovascular disease. Or drunk driving.
Lots to be afraid of. are we prioritizing correctly though? When looking at statistics, it seems we probably shouldn’t sweat the false rape or murder accusations, unless we are doing shit which might make sense where we were accused. In that case, what are we doing, boys?
I… Yes. Yes these are all problems. Yes, they should all be addressed. You’re being incredibly disingenuous with your arguments, and allow me to add, heavily condescending by your liberal use of the term “boys” in this context. I legitimately don’t believe you’re capable of arguing in good faith about this. But, in closing, allow me to speak plainly. To wit, a false accusation with actions behind it functionally ends a life. The life of the accused ends that day. They may continue living, but no longer in the same capacity. We should have a higher bar than a single party accusation to end the life of another. If you do not believe that to be the case, then that speaks volumes more about your mindset than the issue at hand.
You’re being incredibly disingenuous with your arguments, and allow me to add, heavily condescending by your liberal use of the term “boys” in this context.
Well that’s just like, your opinion, man.
I legitimately don’t believe you’re capable of arguing in good faith about this.
You mean to say, you don’t have any rebuttle to what I’m saying. Name one case where I’m arguing in bad faith. Maybe I just need to explain myself further.
But, in closing, allow me to speak plainly.
I wouldn’t ask for anything else from you.
To wit, a false accusation with actions behind it functionally ends a life. The life of the accused ends that day.
Agreed. Also things which “functionally ends a life”:
Being raped
Being raped and not being believed
Having your rapist go free because he got a good lawyer, despite you being raped.
Simply accusing someone of rape, because they raped you (or hell, even if they didn’t). Posts like this fuel the fire of skepticism (normally healthy but in this case mysogynistic) which spread FUD and make it harder to put criminals in jail.
They may continue living, but no longer in the same capacity.
Yeah, I understood what you meant by “functionally ends a life”, please consider the list I have provided (all things which happen orders of magnatude more than men being falsely accused, let alone imprisoned because of a crime they didn’t commit.
We should have a higher bar than a single party accusation to end the life of another.
Careful what you wish for here. The bar is already pretty high, and you’re sowing more FUD trying to convince people that they should be more concerned being falsely imprisoned from a rape accusation than concerned for the actual people raped. and sending the rapist to jail.
If you do not believe that to be the case, then that speaks volumes more about your mindset than the issue at hand.
Your vague bar of “single party accusation” is lower than the current legal standard for imprisoning someone for rape. That’s my point. You’re spreading FUD saying that isn’t.
It’s a common sense of pride for republicans. Is there a reason you take pride in being afraid of things which will likely never happen to you? What other boogeymen make you scared?
Fear is valid, but not to the extent where we allow our family members, our loved ones, our grandparents to continue to be raped, because “he’s always been such a nice guy to me” (men are sometimes monsters when not around other men) or “women usually exaggerate because of a bad date” (no, not usually, this isn’t the norm) or otherwise painting the justice system as rigged against men (it’s very much more rigged against women).
I’m not saying you yourself have made any of these claims, you haven’t. I am saying that when people bring up such old cases it’s because it doesn’t happen often and they can’t find a recent one. Spreading FUD, these stories make men fear a false rape accusation more and more which affects how many men actually believe women when they bravely risk their career and life to try to get a conviction the crime committed against their body.
I assume you don’t want to be raped, so I asssume you can empathize with wanting a rapist to have a conviction. I would believe you if you told me you were raped, even by another man (and I would not judge you for it - nothing to judge). I would want you to get your rapist convicted too, even if your rapist was a woman. “Believe women” doesn’t mean “weigh the opinions of women over the opinions of a man” as a blanket statement. “Believe women” in this context means that this post existing already is causing women who have been raped to reconsider pursuing a conviction because of the implication. The implication that people won’t believe them, that they will just think “they had a bad date and don’t like the guy” or whatever. That’s a problem, regardless of gender. Believe the survivor.
Nowhere in the actual post was it implied that this was a recent event (other than in your head), and in point of fact-- this kind of thing still happens on a regular basis, especially to young male African-Americans.
Nowhere in the actual post was it implied that this was a recent event
Context clues suggest it’s recent. The image in question is a twitter screenshot from 2/7/2024. The current date is 2/10/2024. People are going to assume the twitter screenshot is in reference to current events, instead of an old fucking news article from over a decade ago. It’s called a lie of omission.
People can assume this, that or the other, and context clues can be argued either way, but here’s what’s important IMO–
This is still very much a modern, tragic issue in need of attention
That person’s life is likely still impacted in lasting, significant ways by what that girl did to him
I would guess that person also might find (like others) that outreach on these issues to community & young audiences would be quite useful to society, so there’s an relevant, modern question of-- is he doing that? And/or, how has his life recovered, if it has?
Why did I write these two comments, anyway?
Because your original comment just hand-waved the whole thing away, as if attention and a positive agenda on this stuff was a bad thing. And I happen to find that pathetic.
as if attention and a positive agenda on this stuff was a bad thing
This is culture war propaganda meant to make people think this problem - false rape accusations - is far more common than it actually is by putting a spotlight on it. Actual instances of rape - typically happening to women - never receive the degree of media attention as stories like this. Probably because rape is really fucking common and there are over 100,000 instances of reported rape (and rape is an infamously under-reported crime) by women in the United States alone every single year, most of which lead to no jail time, prosecution, or even a police investigation into offenders.
Are you implying that there’s a competition for sympathy and understanding upon the two groups? And are you saying that young African-American men don’t get the shaft across this, and a variety of other situations?
Stop and think about this stuff, if you can. Think about the fact that multiple harms can exist upon multiple people, with no “propaganda” being necessary to fuel any of that.
That said, I absolutely agree that women are indeed typically the victims of rape. We hardly need statistics for that.
Aside from my support upon these poor guys wrongly accused of rape, whose lives got destroyed by such, and my anger upon the reckless bitch in question… my support, empathy and understanding goes to women, everywhere.
To me it’s completely unacceptable that women should have this many reasons for fear upon men. It’s a complete betrayal of our traditional societies, altho that’s a long… long story.
Some people believe that the only stories that deserve attention are the ones where the man is the bad guy.
I don’t get it.
That being said, this story isn’t new. It very well could be rage bait, and the poor fella in the picture says he don’t want his story to take away anything from survivors of actual sexual assault, so let’s try to honor that at least.
For some time it was. People wrote longer, more elaborate posts and were overall a lot less aggressive.
I only lurked on a smaller Lemmy instance before the great Reddit exodus, but even in the first few months when people started pouring in, it still was like that. It became more and more like Reddit over time.
I wonder what exactly makes internet communities turn like that. What is the connection between having more people in one (online) space and it starting to get more and more toxic?
I joined Lemmy during the great Reddit exodus and I’ve been here pretty much since then and to be honest, I never really felt the difference between the two except user count, so it’s interesting to hear other people’s perspective such as yours.
As to your last point, I think there are a lot of factors, anonymity being the biggest one. Lack of social contracts being another. It’s easier to be a jerk behind the screen where you don’t have to actually face the real-life consequences of treating people poorly. Compound that with others who encourage and join in on the hate. Sometimes, it’s deserved, though more often than not, it isn’t. That’s just my theory, though.
I thought it would be better cause it’s defederated, but I also kind of just thought, more than that, that the crowd lemmy attracts would be more discerning than they are. My faith in the userbase was misplaced, though, and I suppose, ultimately, this place is really just reddit 2.0, with all of the inherent incentive structure issues that go along with such a thing.
Bro, have you seen the front page. People post ragebait constantly. It’s just typically “Boomers something something, Zoomers something something better.” This is just misogynistic instead of ageist.
As horrendous as this story is (and yes, this man does deserve to get compensation for what he’s been through), I agree.
This feels like the very subversive thing that someone with a nefarious mindset would pull to push vulnerable people more into the “manosphere” type mindset.
It may seem innocuous at first, “OH! It’s just a user sharing a story that factually happened!”
But it’s the pulling up of an old article about an enraging topic while women’s rights are being stripped away/we’re seeing a huge surge of Andrew Tate-style influences being held up by the younger male generation. This type of stuff absolutely normalizes hatred/mistrust of women by the redpill/blackpill fans.
for me it’s the fact that multiple independent social media accounts decided this was the time to dredge this story up. The twitter post is from two days ago, and this post is from yesterday. What made this week the week that suddenly everyone decided to care about this particular story?
whether this is a repost and we’re talking about OP, or this is the OP, the question remains the same: why now? and why in a way that makes it really hard to verify the details, like the fact that this happened years ago.
I just think you are probably reading too much into it. Old stuff get recirculated all the time and if OP was worried about “people finding out its old”, he could pick a more recent case. I know of one, and there sure are more.
PS: I wanted to get a source for that one case I remeber and found out the bloody Liabel & Slander case is till ongoing 6 years later. Might also be why we don’t hear as much about more recent stuff since it is still going through the courts.
Digging up an actual case feels a lot more honest and intellectually rigorous than a meme that purposely includes the inflammatory part but cuts out the part that would let you actually verify the info in the meme. Thank you for that. I’ve seen way too many memes like, eg, the one that circulates about the woman who was “thrown in prison for burning a pride flag so much for free speech” that leave out the fact that the pride flag in question belonged to someone else and was attached to the restaurant they own that this woman also burned down (www.google.com/amp/s/…/story%3fid=97336224)
Well, that’s because actual crimes aren’t generally interesting or have any catharsis/schdenfreude behind it. An actual analog would be someone who, after 6 years of appeals, finally gets their rapist convicted. Which I imagine would be as interesting to the random viewer.
As a fan of equality, I propose we be equally pissed for every group that has been wronged. I don’t buy this selected/timed outrage explanation you’re pushing. I can be angry for this, and angry about loss of abortion all at the same time.
I apologize that it’s taken me this long to respond, I’ve been at work all morning. I would just like to take a moment to agree with you. I DO believe that false allegations should be spoken about more often, and that men SHOULD feel supported to share their fears/concerns/etc about this sort of thing happening. I do think that just by saying “That happens so rarely it doesn’t matter”, that we’re hurting the feminist cause, because it’s just like people saying “Oh, rape abortions only account for 1% of all sought after abortions, so it’s a non-issue”. For the people affected, it’s absolutely a huge issue, even if they’re both technically statistical anomalies.
I think its important to be outraged about false rape allegations, as it not only ruined this young man’s life, and the people’s lives he’s close with, it now sheds a mistrustful eye on true rape victims. However, I do think it is telling that this story has resurfaced today as though it happened yesterday, when it is in fact over a decade old. I think it is telling that it is resurfacing during a time period where women’s rights (not even just to bodily autonomy, but there are people arguing to get rid of no-fault divorce as well, among other things) are such a hot button issue. I think it is telling that it’s resurfacing during a period where we’re seeing a surge in young men subscribing to manosphere style content (I honestly think these young men feel unheard/unsupported in their hopes/dreams/wants/worries/fears/etc, but that opens up a whole other topic around extremist feminism).
Yes, I’m angry that this happened. I’m empathetic. I’d like to think (and I’ll likely search it after this comment) that this young man received multi-millions in compensation, because not only did he lose 6 years of his life to the system, he’s also faced a loss in job and relationship opportunities, and not to mention the emotional and psychological effects of being accused and found guilty of a crime he did not commit.
TL;DR - Yes, we can be angry that this young man was wronged, but we can also be critical and suspicious of how/why this story resurfaced now.
Edit: I looked it up, his name is Brian Banks and he was only awarded $142K by the state of California for this wrongful conviction. That makes me doubly angry on his behalf. In no way does that even begin to try and make things up to him (not that I’m arguing that money fixes everything, but holy fuck, only $142K?!). www.hawaiiinnocenceproject.org/brian-banks
Yeah, I feel you. It does seem suspect, but it’s possible this person just found out about it. I suspect I’ve seen this news story before, but I may have forgotten about myself since it wasn’t immediately familiar to me. I find it overwhelming what’s been transgressing with women’s rights lately. Especially since half of America’s potential voters… are women. What the heck is going on? I’ve been beginning to wonder if our “elections” might actually be rigged in more subtle ways than we hear about, for instance, the Republicans screaming about in relation to Trump. How else could we explain this slow decline of personal freedoms impacting literally 50% of our population? Anyways–I’m not trying to spin conspiracy theories or convince anybody that there is an illuminati-in-the-shadows play happening behind our backs. I’m just sitting here wondering what could possibly be the cause of the weirdness we’ve been seeing for the last few years.
I spend a lot of time talking to a good friend of mine who is a conservative, and it’s like we live in alternate dimensions of information. He’ll randomly hit me with accusations about Biden that mirror almost exactly the accusations I had for Trump four years ago… its unbelievable. I think the propaganda machine has been running on full blast for at least a decade now, and I would like to know who is behind that. I’m guessing this same propaganda machine is what’s responsible for the radicalization of young men that you referred to.
I don’t think the commenter you’re replying to is arguing that. At the very least, I don’t argue with that. But I think it’s still important to be critical of the intentions of the post and our reactions to the post all the same (and I think this is true for the majority of news or opinion-based posts).
It’s a 13 year old news story posted as if it happened two days ago. There are certainly false rape accusations but they happen very rarely. Black and brown people in the US are incarcerated for crimes they didn’t commit literally every day, there are plenty of current stories to tell about that. But false rape accusations are not common at all, even though a certain demographic likes to push the idea that they are.
Thank you! I wasn’t intending to argue that this sort of thing doesn’t matter at all. I think it’s mad fucked up that his life was ruined (though I hope he’s been able to rebuild since then), and I think he deserves all the support (mental, financial, social), in the world, but I am suspect of the timing of this/the motivation behind bringing it back up in today’s current climate when it wasn’t prefaced with a “So, how can we do better to combat this sort of thing, alleviate the fears of people, and still support victims?” Like, it wasn’t brought up in a conversational sense at all, and that’s what feels odd about it all.
On the flipside, it’s an interesting topic and I actually hadn’t heard about it (or at least, I don’t remember). So I guess it’s news for me. I appreciate people calling out the date of the incident though.
I also don’t know the real story or anything, but now I think it would be hilarious if she’s actually his lawyer or step-sister or something and just happy for him.
No, punishing those positively proven to have lied about being raped is not the same thing as punishing all those who fail to prove the rape happened. Stop spreading lies.
I think the world has gotten much better, and part of the evidence for that is the number of people willing to stand against this kind of injustice. Before there used to be less, and you were less likely to even hear about the atrocities.
…That’s this world and that’s exactly how it works or did I miss the joke? You can get around that by amassing enough money to buy a business in a town they don’t know you and you move immediately to the top of decent humans around town if you don’t act like a piece of shit. In my case I punched the local pedophile out three hours after meeting him because I didn’t like how he was looking at his daughter and their lifetime ban from my bar evaporated after it was sold to me. Didn’t know that he was before but i know what I’m looking at sometimes.
I pretty sure you think this is some kind of “gotcha” but this 13 year old story is always reposted without names, dates or anything else that would make it easy to look up (or that he took a plea deal).
Here is the snopes article that’s also years old and has yet another version, still deliberately stripped of context.
But I’m sure they can milk another decade of “there is a false rape accusation epidemic” out of the same handful of cases.
Things like this, defines what society is these days. Someone accuses someone of underage rape/ sex, then that accuser is by default 100% correct - even if there is no evidence.
Even if this is occurred several years back, it is a bigger problem these days. As the accused person always has the lower ground - even if they’re innocent.
My molester got away with it. He abused 31 other kids before getting caught. He was 'proven innocent 30 times and only got 15 years for that 32nd kid that he got convicted for.
I’ve run into him since his release, he tried to get me to tell the court that he didn’t do anything.
I’ve known other victims.
Look up the average number of victims before a predator is caught. Fake testimony is rare, predators getting away with their crimes is common.
That being said, i find it unlikely you’re capable of much more discussion than throwing insults, so you probably shouldn’t waste your time responding.
I’m sorry but you seem to misinterpret my whole message. Where did I state about predators getting away with their crimes - those people who are definitely guilty?
Also fake testimony is not rare, if you look about the place you will find more instances about it.
In general, your message seems to invalidate people who are truly innocent - which is the main point of this article, and my message. So that last point you’ve made also applies to you.
Yeah so the guy who spent 6 years in jail for doing nothing should just keep suffering because you suffered too?
I’m sorry for what you went through, nobody should ever need to, but that doesn’t give you the right to demand random other people also suffer just to make you feel better. Their lives matter too.
I think they just misinterpreted my message. I don’t think op is that egoistic, but I dislike that they implied it that way; it makes it appear that the only way of repaying is to throw a random innocent civilian into prison.
Also, op seems to drift off the main point of talk. Like ok, there is crime everywhere. However, this tread is dedicated for the crime of lying in court/society,aka false accusations. I just don’t understand op here.
It happens every single time the discussion of false rape accusations happen; hell even one of my close friends has the same experience and reacts the same way.
Any remote implication that an accused sexual assault perpetrator might not be guilty is just bombarded with stories like that, that their abuser wasn’t found guilty and that by daring to accept the fact that sometimes it actually is false, we’re directly attacking them and their experience.
This only holds up when “I saw it on social media” is your authority.
Someone accuses someone of underage rape/ sex, then that accuser is by default 100% correct - even if there is no evidence.
Complete bullshit. There is always a trial and when there is genuinely “no evidence”, victims are dissuaded from continuing.
Even if this is occurred several years back, it is a bigger problem these days
According to… some guy on the internet.
If you have proof of widespread false accusations, why are you being so vague? You could be busting hundreds of innocent men out of jail and you wouldn’t have to keep reusing the same story from years ago.
The court of public opinion is a powerful thing, and there, you will always be assumed guilty. Even if acquitted in court, and even if the accuser admitted it was a lie, a lot of the time the only thing people will see when googling you (such as prospective employers as one example) will see the news of the accusation, and then stop looking further.
And this thread is the answer is it? Weird that when you google that guys name – which isn’t actually included in the post – literally everything you find is about his innocence.
Belief is attached to faith in something, despite lack of verification, evidence, or knowledge. To “believe the victim” is to accept their side of the story by filling any unverified gaps with good faith. “Trust and verify” is literally not this as it is to trust that they are telling the truth and so seek to verify it. If it cannot be verified, it cannot be verified, there is no plugging it with good faith.
You don’t have to trust an entire person to trust them with some things. You can trust someone to wash your car but not trust them with your credit card number.
But if you trust someone to wash your car, you don’t do it in degrees. You don’t 80% trust someone to wash your car. It’s binary. You either trust them to and allow them to, or you don’t trust them to and don’t allow them to.
I trust literally everyone when they say they’ve been raped. I believe them. But the world is complicated, people makes mistakes, and other people have rights. So you don’t just chuck someone in prison because you believe the victim. You verify. You have a trial. And if the victim was lying, then my trust and belief were misplaced. But I start out from a place of trust and belief. Because that’s what you do when someone has been hurt, and I’m not omnipotent to know what happened.
If you trust someone to tell you the truth on a topic, but don’t fully believe them, then you don’t trust them on that topic.
You actually almost got it, except that last bit kind of falls off what was being said again.
The car wash analogy is good.
If I believe someone can wash my car, they get to do it. Every time. I’m impartial to the quality of it.
If I trust someone to wash my car, they get to do it. But if I verify they sucked at it, they won’t do it again since I no longer trust they can wash my car and certainly don’t believe they can.
Claims can be so outlandish, like “Blue gnomes burst from the earth and made me rape her!” It’s unbelievable, it’s dismissable. But if it’s said by someone that’s never known to lie in their life, there’s an element of trust where the claim’s worth verifying, despite how unbelievable it is.
This links to the premise of “innocent until proven guilty” and loops us back to the article and the original comment @smotherlove left.
It shouldn’t need to be explained this much. I don’t care much for up and down votes, but in this case, I think they may be a useful indicator, at best, that you’re not grasping something commonly understood—except that last one where I said you’ve almost got it. Maybe it’s just simple misunderstanding. Regardless, in such cases, it’s better to reassess, reflect, and attempt to understand rather than distribute 100% of capacity into opposing, which obviously won’t ever conclude as much as you would like it to.
Saying to believe all victims has the added benefit of encouraging rape victims, who historically would stay quiet out of fear and shame, to speak up. This benefit drastically outweighs the “occasionally sometimes people make shit up” scenario. This is why we do not caveat the phrase. If we said, “believe all rape victims, but sometimes y’all are liars and you’re going to have to seriously prove this shit”, then we would go back to silencing real victims.
Of course some are going to lie, and you shouldn’t have trusted them, and you’ll know that retrospectively. But I’d rather be burned by a couple liars and help many victims.
Well, that’s why trust and verify is the concept. To not see anyone burned by lies. Victims will also exaggerate or lie to get a more vengeful outcome for what happened to them. Defaulting to believing what they say, simply because we know they’ve been wronged, can easily result in unjust consequence.
I no longer understand where you’re going. Are you implying that it’s okay for things to be unjust and unfair if it may pave way for more opportunities to serve justice and fairness? Like, collateral is okay if it’s worth it?
I’m a bit drunk so I hope I’m completely misunderstanding this. But if I’m not, it’s quite concerning—albeit intriguing.
I’m saying that it’s very important that as many actual rape victims come forward as possible. To have that happen we must appear supportive and show that we will believe them. That’s why we say we believe the victim. To get them to come out.
The court system is there to verify the claim after. That’s obvious and we don’t need to highlight that point. Highlighting that point, that the process of conviction isn’t easy, dissuades victims from coming forward.
The point of this story, which many missed, is that the court system failed. His lawyer told him to plead guilty. And he did.
The “verify” part is broken, and you don’t fix it by trusting victims less.
The point of this story, which many missed, is that the court system failed. His lawyer told him to plead guilty. And he did.
The “verify” part is broken, and you don’t fix it by trusting victims less.
No. The point of the story is, someone exploited this…
To have that happen we must appear supportive and show that we will believe them. That’s why we say we believe the victim. To get them to come out.
…and the concept you’re advocating is the thing that almost had an innocent person’s life ruined. To which you seem to be fine with at 0.01%—“Whoop-de-doo”—because you have an assumption that it’s offset by catching more bad guys.
That. Is. Fucking. Sick. I’m trying to give you benefit of doubt, but you’re doubling down on it.
we must appear supportive and show that we will believe them
That’s called Dark Psychology. Spoiler alert: It results in bad outcomes, such as seen in this article. An innocent almost had their life ruined because of the concept you’re advocating.
Used as an intensive before a figurative expression.
this definition only applies to “literally”, not" literal" though
I think i remember some news about it being added to some small acclaim, but even leaving that aside, authors with a grasp of the language far better than you or me ever will have used ‘literally’ this way since before we were born. I think the earliest use was in the 18th century?
So now you know!
EDIT:
The use of literally in a fashion that is hyperbolic or metaphoric is not new—evidence of this use dates back to 1769. Its inclusion in a dictionary isn’t new either; the entry for literally in our 1909 unabridged dictionary states that the word is “often used hyperbolically; as, he literally flew.”
We (and all the other “craven dictionary editors”) have included this definition for a very simple reason: a lot of people use it this way, and our entries are based on evidence of use.
Furthermore, the fact that so many people are writing angry letters serves as a sort of secondhand evidence, as they would hardly be complaining about this usage if it had not become common.
It’s out of context. They have not understood where the word “literally” is being applied. Even if they did, the fourth definition they pulled does not apply. Which is a shame, considering all that effort.
My guess is because they’ve been feeling super-smart all these years laughing at people who use “literally” figuratively, and also i made no attempt to not sound like a prick.
But I don’t consider downvotes a bad thing here since they don’t hide the comment. I consider them engagement points.
An actual dictionary definition. Not the dictionary definition. And it’s because the dictionary is wrong in this one. Not factually incorrect, unfortunately; their goal here is to be objectively descriptivist, cataloguing use, and they are doing that. But this use is linguistically wrong on a fundamental level.
I’ve abandoned a great deal of the prescriptivist proclivities of my youth. I get it, language evolves. But I draw the line here. “Literally” means, specifically, in the literal sense. The whole point of the word is to make an explicit distinction from non-literal use. If you can use it to denote hyperbolic or figurative use, then the word literally loses all semantic purpose, it’s just a sound with no actual meaning. Sure, you can use words to mean their opposites sarcastically, but that requires an obvious tonal or contextual cues. The figurative use of “literally” is tonally the same as the literal use, all it does is add uncertainty.
It’s not even an effective intensifier, since that usage is less intense than the literal use. “I’m literally starving” is immediately less intense once it’s clear that it’s being used as an intensifier. It’s post-meaning gobbledygook.
No, believe the victim actually, literally, does mean exactly the same thing in spirit as trust but verify. In the two different contexts they both mean:
People can lie
But with these people, we will act trusting toward them
But not abandon our process that checks their claims
In one case it’s a cultural policy around sexual assault claims, and in the other it’s a NKVD policy around receiving agent field reports, but it is literally (yes I know what the word means) the same policy applied to two different contexts.
I mean, yeah. His lawyer talked him into accepting a no contest plea deal. He accepted guilt even though he did nothing. He’s black, and they didn’t they could win.
All of that says nothing about the woman or how we should treat possible victims, and everything about how broken our ‘justice’ system is, especially for minorities.
If you want to get something fixed, focus on that, not on possibly silencing real rape victims.
I think it’s because what you’ve said makes it so the implication is that they’re probably lying. How isn’t that obvious? You do understand the context for the current situation we find ourselves, in which people are saying believe victims, right?
Better question: which do you think is more common? Dudes being wrongly punished for rape or rapists walking the streets because of how brutal it is for ladies to come forth with “accusations”? The answer to that directly highlights why people might feel the need to say we should believe rape/sexual assault victims.
Seriously, like 1 in 4 (or 5) ladies has been sexually assaulted or raped, what do you think the number for dudes that have been wrongly accused of rape?
Seriously, like 1 in 4 (or 5) ladies has been sexually assaulted or raped, what do you think the number for dudes that have been wrongly accused of rape?
Irrelevant. Blackstone’s ratio: It is better for the guilty to walk free than for one innocent to suffer. If it applies to murder, it also applies to rape. Rape isn’t worse than murder, I hope we agree there.
Especially in the context of the US’s excuse for a justice system which most of this seems to be rooted in that age-old principle doesn’t even begin to apply, with people getting coerced into plea deals, worse, “you’re black noone will believe you”.
To go ahead in such a situation and say “but think about the women he didn’t rape but others raped” is to bend the narrative to justify the US’ reneging on fundamental principles of justice, with the race angle involved it’s even worse.
Also, side note: Sexual assault isn’t rape, but combining both looks like a convenient way to pad statistics. A gal grabbing my crotch or slapping my butt is sexual assault never have I filed a criminal complaint… and neither get men asked such questions in polls.
Women are raped at a high rate, and often when they come forward they are defacto treated as if they’re lying. At every step, quite often- not just during the trial. The “believe women” political push was about women’s testimonies being taken more seriously, because currenty everyone expects a much higher burden of truth from them, and thus most cases are dismissed. Of course, conservatives with antifeminist motives chose to scarecrow the movement as they’ve done with literally every feminist initiative.
On the other end, black folks- black men especially- are also subjected to a much higher burden of proof than white folks. Juries regularly find black men guilty of charges with little to no evidence past testimonials from the victim. That’s ultimately why this guy took the plea deal- he and his lawyers figured he couldn’t win a fair trial.
These are still both issues with not just our justice system, but our society as a whole, and both need to be addressed.
Yeah it’s not like the accused gets sentenced automatically. There’s due process. No it doesn’t always work. Surely we all know that by now.
The flip side is that not all accusations result in charges pressed and a trial. I think the victim has to want to press charges and testify. Or in other words, they must be willing to be put through that additional trauma. (They may not report the attack at all).
That’s all assuming the laws actually cover what happened as rape, or sexual assault, etc.
For every case of an accuser lying and the accused being falsely imprisoned there are many more cases where the victim sees no justice whatsoever, unfortunately.
For every case of an accuser lying and the accused being falsely imprisoned there are many more cases where the victim sees no justice whatsoever, unfortunately.
And on top of this for every victim who reports the assualt many more never report it. The statistics surrounding rape are so incredibly depressing
I feel the issue of false accusations is only brought up when it is a woman falsely accusing a man of rape. No other type of false accusation gets that much attention, it’s own Wikipedia page, multiple blogs, etc. etc.
I would like someone to make a study about how much false rape accusations are talked about on social media like Reddit, Lemmy, etc. in comparison to, for example, rape cases that never get any conviction. Or convictions for rape that got laughable sentences.
I don’t think your assessment is accurate, I see stories about wrongful accusations of all sorts all the time. The actual common factor is that they are essentially all against black men, which makes sense seeing as they comprise the majority of the US prison population.
Of course kid can do fucked up things, but at 10 years old I disagree, she heard that somewhere for sure and isn’t smart enough to be held responsible.
There could be another culprit if she was 16 too. People don’t like to admit it but a 16 year old is still basically a child. We don’t know what went down all we can do is be glad he was finally exonerated.
You want to say children who commit horrible crimes should face no punishment because they were young? Sorry but…yes. If a kid does something this horrible they need to face charges. Not charged as an adult but…yep.
Sure we need to figure out if the parents put her up to this as well. But we don’t even know thats the case here. For all we know she heard the word somewhere and thought it would be fun to claim this. People, even children, need to face up to what they have done. Just curious, in your version of the legal system you want us to start using…at what age do we ignore what a child has done and only punish the adults? 18 when they are legally an adult themselves?
Also…The monkey in your analogy would, beyond a shadow of a doubt, be killed because it was a threat. Nobody would even think twice about putting a bullet in it.
For me it’s a slider, the older the more responsible, at 15 I would agree with you, but 10 I definitely think the parents should be the ones in court.
Would the monkey really be put down tho ? If it still holds the flamethrower of course, because it’s still a threat, but after the fact I don’t think so.
If you look at the Wikipedia entry for “age of criminal responsibility,” quite a few countries think that children under a certain age just plain cannot be held responsible for a crime. Of course, in the US it’s different and there are some states where age does exempt from responsibility and some where it doesn’t.
At the very least, those are kids who need an evaluation and probably some sort of therapy to help them become reasonably well-adjusted adults. Try and correct their course early so they won’t go so far astray.
Children in these situations don’t need incarceration they need therapy and rehabilitation. Putting them behind bars is just a waste at best, and doesn’t in any way make the world a better place.
I think sometimes people respond to punishment. They/we don’t want the consequences of an action so we change our behavior. With that said, our prison system is terrible. A person’s punishment should be loss of freedom (only). IMO we should still treat prisoners with some dignity and they should be safe and reasonably comfortable.
10 years is way below criminal maturity. At that age I’d very much rather have a close look at everyone who interviewed her. It’s terribly easy to get kids to make false statements.
google says the incident was in 2002 and the reneg in 2011 (cleared in 2012) so it seems like she’d have to be 16 at time of accusation, courts took a few years to actually jail him, and she would be about 25 when she came clean. It says the statute of limitations for lying in court was passed by the time he was cleared, so no chance for a counter-suit or he would have pursued* it. The accuser was ordered to pay back money she’d gotten from the school district for claiming an unsafe environment.
If you lie in court and it results in consequences for someone else, there should be no statute, and you should have to face the same consequences they did.
They actually won a $2.6 million judgement against her, whereas she originally won $1.5 million. Failed to show up in court. Broke little gold digger now.
It says the statute of limitations for lying in court was passed by the time he was cleared
That is such utter fucking bullshit. I wonder if that's why she finally came clean knowing she was safe from the consequences of her actions, alternatively he could still be in there if that was the case and they didn’t run out.
So you cant even extend them without risking innocent people staying in gaol longer.
That actually highlights an interesting conflict - if the fear of prosecution keeps someone from coming clean until they’re “safe”, would it be better to not have a punishment for it at all? That seems unfair, of course, but is it more unfair than being falsely imprisoned longer than one needs to be? Maybe punishing people that are caught and pardoning those that come clean?
I appreciate this lighthearted solution in otherwise depressing thread. Of course in the real world for this to work, news sources and search engines would have to be censored, and lawyers would have to lie.
Better let the guilty go unpunished than the innocent suffer.
It’s the very cornerstone of justice, a system of law which sacrifices the innocent in its zeal is generally not considered justice, but tyranny. Examples include things like witch trials, or the Khmer Rouge.
Practically speaking: The right time to sentence an accuser for lying is during the trial against the accused, not after.
Better let the guilty go unpunished than the innocent suffer.
I’m pretty much of the same mind, but unfortunately it’s a hard pitch to sell to the majority, it seems. Many are hungry for “justice”, which translates to revenge to most. It’s heartbreaking that innocents get crushed under a society’s campaign for punishment.
Add comment