First Assange, now Appelbaum. What's next? Snowden being accused of sexual mistreatment, too? Whatever they're accusing him of may have very well happened, but it's just a little strange how this keeps happening to the government's "enemies".
Also: of the people who do serious work on counter-censorship, anonymity, privacy, and the like, the overwhelming majority have had no accusations made at all. For that matter, despite a long prison sentence, neither has Chelsea Manning.
Could it be that your sample size here is "2"?
I'm not even defending him, I just think you're doing a crap job of dismissing the concern.
The setup for this hints at a managed campaign. Twitter, anonymous hit piece, website with stories. The kind of plan that comes out of a powerpoint.
There may be truth in the accusations, but the evidence does hint at a guiding hand fleshing them out.
I will assume he is innocent until proven guilty & it is possible or even probable he is innocent. However, given the degree this happens at companies it is totally possible this is simply a regular ambiguous he said she said which has happened in Gamergate, Tinder Github ect. Not that I mean to trivialize it, just to point out there is a large precedent for such things to occur naturally & given he worked with wikileaks it would probably be a dumb way to go about dissuading him, although it can't be ruled out until more info surfaces.
The goal of an operation like this would be to replace the non compliant actor with a compliant actor. In this case, remove the guy and replace him with someone willing to insert code to compromise the codebase.
We don't know if that's what happened/is happening here, but we don't know it's not either. And I personally don't subscribe to the stupidity/malice law that's regularly thrown around here on HN.
Conspiracies don't get that big without bursting.
You're basically saying that there's no evidence that it's a coordinated campaign (really, the fact that it was talked about on Twitter isn't evidence of anything at all), and that lack of evidence is why it has to be a coordinated campaign. Which is a logical fallacy at best.
EDIT: that wasn't quite what I meant. There's some evidence that somebody is coordinating it. There's no evidence that it's a hostile government. The evidence suggests that the coordinator is somebody who feels that they were sexually harassed.
I said there are hints of evidence of a coordinated campaign. Which there are. This could be from the number of people involved, or a guiding hand. I placed no stake in the ground on either possibility.
Your personal attack at calling it a logical fallacy is noted.
If there's anything else I've misinterpreted, you're going to have to spell it out.
He's been treated as guilty before given a chance to be proven as such.
But here is the thing - it is the public that is guilty of treating him like guilty. There is nothing wrong with airing accusations. But the proper reaction is to not take a side - to say - lets the court figure it out. But we as a society are unable to do so.
We don't want justice - we want to have it our way. Preferably now.
That is why its important for victims to goto authorities IMMEDIATELY. Not 40 yrs later, not after the next victim speaks up. RIGHT NOW.
I'm sure there are complications I'm glossing over, having never been a victim of sexual assault. But the timing is imperative.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justice_delayed_is_justice_den...
In this case, the people did talk to his superiors, and they appear to have done as little as legally possible about it until there were public statements.
I have sat as a member of the jury on a case in which a man was accused of sexually abusing a child many, many times. I sat in that jury, I listened to the evidence and I determined beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was guilty. He is a rapist. As a member of the jury, that is my determination, I stand by that decision to this day.
I was unfortunate enough to sit on a jury with a majority of jurors that made the determination that he was not guilty beyond reasonable doubt, and unfortunately that caused a mistrial, and unfortunately the prosecution decided not to pursue a retrial. The accused, the rapist, walked free from court.
Your argument is that I cannot stand by my determination, that I must sit here and tell you that he is not a rapist, that he did not abuse that child again and again and again, because I was unfortunate enough to sit in a room with people who don't understand sexual abuse.
People walk free from court, either by way of a mistrial or because the jury deliver a not guilty verdict, all the time, and these results are frequently delivered not because the person is innocent but because of errors made by the jury, the prosecution or by the police. Some people don't even make it to court because prosecutors can make decisions that aren't aligned with justice or fairness but with their own self interest.
As a private citizen you have every right to use your knowledge and understanding of a case to make a determination about the accused and you have every right to let that determination influence your actions. I will never allow the man I judged to be a rapist go near my children.
It is morally impossible to remain neutral in this conflict.
The bystander is forced to take sides.
It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator.
All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing.
He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear and speak
no evil. The victim, on the contrary, asks the bystander
to share the burden of pain. The victim demands action,
engagement and remembering...
edit: I would also like to add that courts do not deal in proof, they deal in evidence. A guilty verdict delivered if Jacob Applebaum faces criminal charges does not prove he is guilty of what he has been accused, a not guilty verdict delivered if Jacob Applebaum faces criminal charges does not he is innocent of what he has been accused. The justice system does not deal in absolutes, it doesn't deal in proof.
I fully agree with you that a not guilty verdict is not identical to innocence. But its the current system we've (as a society) have agreed upon for deciding what is actionable or not. The makers of this website have taken it upon themselves to be judge, jury, and "executioner" (actor of justice).
As you've said its not slander unless proven false.
The case I sat on had a piece of evidence that could not be admitted initially because of a legal technicality, the defendant made a mistake during his testimony and much to the defence's chagrin he revealed something that allowed the prosecution to present the evidence which otherwise would never have been heard by the jury. An article written about the case I sat on would have mentioned that piece of evidence -- even if it hadn't been delivered in court, it was public knowledge -- and a person reading that article would know more than I might have known had the defendant not made that mistake. The evidence heard by a jury is not more true or more meaningful than evidence heard by those outside of the process, it is evidence that fits within the legal parameters, evidence that the lawyers determine furthers their cause, it's evidence that has a material impact on the legal outcome.
The information available to the public about a case before a trial has taken place can be more informative than the information available to the jury during the trial, there are many cases where jurors have been contacted after a high profile trial to talk about the case and revealed the decisions they made would have been very different had they seen information now available to the public. Some cases may never make it to court, victims of sexual assault are often told that their case won't be pursued because the prosecution doesn't believe they have a strong chance of winning, does this mean that the victims and people knowledgable about the cases should never be permitted to air their opinions, the opinions they built on the evidence, because it never made it to court? That doesn't seem reasonable, to suggest that the gate keeper of whether or not an opinion is allowed is an opaque unsupervised legal process.
Every day individuals make decisions about people based on the information available to them and nobody bats an eye. When I witness caring and compassionate behaviour I choose to pursue friendship, when I see disrespectful behaviour I choose to minimise interactions, this is normal human behaviour that we all engage in every day, in personal and professional contexts. When people I trust inform me that someone behaves inappropriately, I choose to minimise interactions with that person, this is normal, it's accepted, everybody does it, so why does this suddenly become inappropriate to engage in this normal behaviour when the person is involved in sexual assault? Why are we suddenly worried about slander and libel and letting the legal system run its course when someone is accused of rape but the same isn't applied to claims about being inconsiderate, or theft. A credible claim is made about a party guest stealing jewellery, they aren't invited to parties any more, a credible claim is made about sexual assault, "whoa whoa whoa, let's not start a lynch mob here, let's leave it to the legal process".
The legal system exists to deal with law not personal opinion, it doesn't exist to determine how individuals can or should feel.
But saying that "a guilty verdict ... does not prove he is guilty of what he has been accused" is splitting hairs. At least in the US, the legal term is "proof beyond a reasonable doubt". Which is a proof, but isn't an absolute.
Just like Tor is an affront to justice. People with concerns about their government should not seek to anonymously smear their government on the Internet, they should speak to the proper authorities.
https://twitter.com/puellavulnerata
https://twitter.com/postessive
https://twitter.com/isislovecruft
As well as https://twitter.com/maradydd (not a dev afaik but associated with Tor?)
This is also pretty clear: https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/4mkh8j/confirmed_jacob...
I like a lot this kind comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/TOR/comments/4mkh8j/confirmed_jacob...
Also, you were downvoted but you shouldn't have been -- you raise IMO a valid concern. Pro-state bots?
Re-read The Tor Project's statement before you start throwing out wild conspiracy theories, seriously. As they say
"We have been working with a legal firm that specializes in employment issues including sexual misconduct. They are advising us on how to handle this, and we intend to follow their advice."
But anything much more then that at this point is effectively certain to be at best partially correct, at worst outright mistaken, with endless potential for legally shooting themselves in the gut and/or, ignoring law entirely, burning bridges and hurting important team members down the road. The wheels will and should turn consistently, but with deliberation and care as well. It's always possible to say more later, and should there be a criminal and/or civil trial then of course much would come out there, but what one says cannot be unsaid, so when in doubt silence is best. That's true in general, let alone with a sensitive, targeted and specialized project like Tor.
I'm annoyed that the parody showed up before details of the "misconduct" did.