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Comment by camperman | Hacker News Reader

A blog is no substitute for due process. Appelbaum may be guilty of all of the things he's been accused of, he may be guilty of none of them. Let's see some formal charges, sworn witness statements and court proceedings before we decide. False accusations can and do happen all the time.

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No. Jail needs to wait for formal charges, but the community can make its own decisions whether they will accept his behavior - and they may decide they care about things that are both vile and legal, they may use entirely different reasoning than the courts.

This is a great way to make sure you have an unjust community wherein no one has the opportunity to defend themselves and speaking ill of someone is enough to evict them.

A slippery slope, if you will? No, let this case stand on its own:

The leaders of the Tor community were shown evidence they considered to be sufficient to boot this guy. It's a community they lead, they get to decide who is welcome. You want to start your own community and welcome him with open arms, you go right ahead.

Last I checked the Tor developers don't own the entire privacy community.

That said, yes, they do lend a lot of legitimacy to this claim, but it just concerns me that no one has publicly put their name on a rape allegation and nothing has been taken up legally.

Why is a rape allegation needed? A history of sexual harassment, rape or not, is enough for me to kick someone out of any community I'm a part of.

There's the problem of false accusations, but I think there is enough "evidence" with this many coming forward (and many non-anonymously) and that Tor kicked him out too.

I certainly agree with your basic grounds, but there's a rape allegation needed when people are willing to spray paint "a rapist lives here" on your home.

Which I don't see anyone doing? Maybe in some other article/blog post but in the one here I see accusations of harassment and brief mentions that others are accusing of rape.

Someone literally did that.

https://contraspin.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/mc1.png

I wasn't aware of that, and that was wrong.

However, the blog post discussed here nor anyone in the thread has suggested that that should be done so I'm confused why you are fixated on it.

I find the way you argue very frustrating. I respond to "This is a great way to make sure you have an unjust community wherein no one has the opportunity to defend themselves and speaking ill of someone is enough to evict them." by saying "It's a community they lead, they get to decide who is welcome." but then you shift the goalposts.

You slide right past my assertion that the Tor community must be able to decide who is welcome in the Tor community and refer to a nebulous "privacy community" now. Is the "privacy community" even at issue? I don't know what that is. If there is a group called the "privacy community", then yes, I agree, they should decide who is welcome in their club.

As far as I know, he's not being prosecuted. The only rights he acquires from not being prosecuted are that he won't go to jail. Right? He doesn't have any automatic right to join my club, your club, or the Tor community's club.

What Isis Lovecruft describes in her piece very much looks like rape to me.

Unfortunately, not doing this is a good way to end up in a situation like outlined in the blog post.

There isn't an easy answer here.

Certainly, I'm just trying to argue against the overly simplistic view.

Suggesting that the volume of accusations and eyewitness accounts that have been made against Appelbaum may be "false accusations" is a shameful thing to do.

I wasn't but even if I was it isn't shameful at all - it's how justice works in Western societies. Someone is presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Allegations are just that - allegations. If there are a wide variety of them independently from different people, then it's more likely that there is something to them but that still doesn't mean you can just rush to judgement. That way lies Duke Lacrosse, Mattress Girl and A Rape On Campus just off the top of my head.

The courts can lock you up or kill you, so it's appropriate if they have somewhat stringent standards for guilt. Private organizations can only show you the door, and the standards for that are quite a bit less exacting. The media episodes you mention are not relevant to the internal operation of private organizations.

Hang on, we're not just talking about violations of internal company policies that led to a dismissal here. We're talking about crimes. I quote: "sexual harassment, rape, stalking, personal threats, and more." Appelbaum is entitled to defend himself and face his accusers in court if they believe they have something against him.

As to his guilt, I don't know. Half of me thinks he could well be a slimeball that's guilty as charged. If that's the case, then he needs to go to jail. But the other half of me remembers that there's 'women in tech' organisations that have been accused of framing technology leaders for sexual assault just to marginalize them. That's why I want to see some due process and some real evidence.

> there's 'women in tech' organisations that have been accused of framing technology leaders for sexual assault just to marginalize them

Just what kind of absurd anti-feminist conspiracy theories have you been reading? Are you honestly suggesting that this many of Applebaums colleagues are evil conspirators hell-bent on destroying an innocent man's life? I think you could do with some Occam's Razor and a moment to think about your attitude towards sexual assault and power.

> Just what kind of absurd anti-feminist conspiracy theories have you been reading?

Eric Raymond's post on the subject here - http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=6907 - clearly accuses the Ada Initiative of framing technology leaders for sexual assault. I chose to Listen and Believe him. What's the problem?

> Are you honestly suggesting that this many of Applebaums colleagues are evil conspirators hell-bent on destroying an innocent man's life?

No, I think there something to these allegations. But the problem is the environment has been salted and soured so much recently that when a high profile person accuses someone of a sexual assault that took place years ago, my automatic reaction is that they're lying. That's why I want to see due process including cross-examination and lengthy jail terms if he's guilty.

> I think you could do with some Occam's Razor

Ok, how about this then? Three separate women accuse a media personality of sexual assault. He is tried. On the stand it turns out each one of the women was lying - he had proof that it was consensual. I was 100% convinced before the trial he would be convicted. I mean come on: three separate witnesses? Each with a similar story? Occam's Razor right? Nope.

> a moment to think about your attitude towards sexual assault and power.

I think it's extremely healthy: someone accused of any crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty as part of a due process.

In some sense, it doesn't matter what the subject is accused of. The standard for dismissal as an unpaid official of a private nonprofit organization is lower than that for prison. Subject could always set up his own networked privacy tool? OK, maybe that's a stretch... b^)

>In some sense, it doesn't matter what the subject is accused of.

Yeah, right.

1. This is Jacob Appelbaum: he consistently went over the head of procurement when ordering new paper for the printer. He's been fired.

2. This is Jacob Appelbaum: he's a sleazy pickup artist who's raped at least one person, threatened others and made female employees' lives a living hell. He's been fired.

One of these things is not like the other.

> The standard for dismissal as an unpaid official of a private nonprofit organization is lower than that for prison.

Well, quite. But as soon as you accuse someone of a criminal offense, then they're entitled to use the legal system to defend themselves. Violet's point is that the community needs to stop this from happening again which I have to agree with - if the accused is indeed guilty. But she cannot just charge ahead and demand sweeping reforms before determining whether he is or not.

> Subject could always set up his own networked privacy tool? OK, maybe that's a stretch... b^)

No - Subject needs to answer these very serious charges in front of a judge so that he can either a) clear his name or b) be locked up to protect others from his predatory behavior.

It's rather more principled than "shameful". You need only look at what happened to Jian Ghomeshi to realize this kind of stuff can be coordinated by people with their own agenda.

Without an impartial investigation, we on the outside know nothing but what has been alleged.

Have you missed the part where many of the people that have been abused by Appelbaum are also radicals that both distrust the criminal justice system AND think that it has overall negative effects that don't serve anyone? There are ways of getting to accountability and rehabilitation and justice that don't have anything to do with filing charges in a court of law. Start with looking up "restorative justice" and "restorative justice rape" for example, to read about approaches that have worked. Isis even talked about being involved in some of these approaches in the past (and why they weren't currently working with Appelbaum)

> Have you missed the part where many of the people that have been abused by Appelbaum are also radicals that both distrust the criminal justice system AND think that it has overall negative effects that don't serve anyone?

I don't really care. For all its faults, due process in the West is still a whole lot better than the alternatives.

> There are ways of getting to accountability and rehabilitation and justice that don't have anything to do with filing charges in a court of law.

If these allegations are true, Appelbaum is clearly someone who needs to be locked away from society for decades in my opinion and no-one can arbitrarily claim that authority. The important word is 'if'.

> Start with looking up "restorative justice" and "restorative justice rape" for example, to read about approaches that have worked.

Great. Let's find out if a rape happened first. Because it didn't happen at Duke Lacrosse, it didn't happen to Emma Sulkowicz, it didn't happen at the University of Virginia, it didn't happen to Nicola Osborne, Elizabeth Coast, Katherine Bennett, Cassandra Kennedy or Linsey Attridge.

saved

False accusations can and do happen all the time

No, accusations are labelled as false all the time; genuinely baseless accusations are much rarer.

Completely untrue. Victims of bullying, both in workplaces and in schools, are very often subjected to incredibly vicious rumors that are 100% made up.

Maybe you have to live longer to experience this. Have encountered false accusations more than once in my life (not about me, but I knew they were false). If I'm typical, then they happen all the time everywhere?

False accusations of sexual harassment in particular, or accusations in general?

> False accusations of sexual harassment in particular, or accusations in general?

False accusations of sexual harassment do, in fact, happen (and, should a general perception that they do not occur become widely recognized, it would be reasonable to expect that that alone would make false accusations more common -- the general acceptance of the belief "no one would lie about X" encourages lying about X.)

No. E.g. one was of a traffic incident that I was a passenger in.

You have no idea how often "genuinely baseless" accusations happen. Nobody does. We know they happen, but we're only sure when the accuser is a really terrible liar, as in the Rolling Stone UVA article's "Jackie" or Mattress Girl, or the accused (the actual victims) were able to produce a video as in this case:

http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jul/25/local/me-false25

Nobody knows how many guys are rotting in jail because they ran across a vindictive (or just plain crazy) woman who can keep her story straight.

   baseless accusations are much rarer.

And where is the credible evidence for this claim? NB citing Wikipedia or a newspaper is not credible evidence.

> False accusations can and do happen all the time.

Can I check how you're defining "false accusation"? There are several different definitions.

EDIT after downvote: The different definitions include "nothing happened and the alleged victim made it all up", but also "it happened, and the alleged attacker actually did it, but was found not guilty, and so in law they're innocent and thus the accusation is false".

Clarifying which definition is being used helps conversation.

Yeah, while I'm pretty much willing to believe this just due to the people involved, it is curious that no one has been willing to put their name on an actual rape accusation.

Maybe because that's a very personal matter? I imagine that most people that have been victims of rape do not want their name to be part of the public discussion.

"I imagine that most people that have been victims of rape do not want their name to be part of the public discussion."

I think this is a reasonable assumption.

However, that doesn't change the fact that if nobody officially stands up and makes use of the legal system, a predator will go unpunished....and quite possibly hurt others.

Unless one is hoping that vigilantism will take care of the problem, but that's rather horrible too.

Perhaps, but if you're going to make public accusations against him, but then back out before anyone can validate them, that seems... suspect at best.

What, it's better to let him go out and hurt others than to take it public or legal?

No, it really doesn't based on research so far.

I also do not understand your obsession with alleged rape. If it turned out that rape part was not true, but others were, would you see Applebaum differently?

I sure as hell wouldn't.

I certainly would.

There's a major difference between someone making some offensive comments (even repeatedly) and someone committing violent crime.

I would not describe his acts as "some offensive comments". The reason why I don't see much of a difference is because I don't find the difference between psychological and physical violence that important when effect is similar and to me it seems to be.

> I don't find the difference between psychological and physical violence that important when effect is similar

There's good reason why these crimes are differentiated in the laws of every country around. The effects are not remotely comparable and to suggest that they are is quite offensive to victims of real violence.

I disagree. They are differentiated because we did not understand the immediate and long term effects of both and it is difficult to change cultural norms.

As someone who has worked with victims of long term harassment (of both sexes) and have therefore seen up close such effects, I find offensive your implicit statement that psychological violence is somehow not real violence.

So you are fine with his other behaviour?

Absolutely not, but there's a world of difference still.

I get what you're saying... but back when I worked at a grocery store and called out a lazy stoner I worked with for being exceptionally slow and inefficient, he waited until I was alone in the stock room and held a knife to me and said if I ever did anything like that again, he would cut me.

There was no physical harm, but I was shaken enough to quit on the spot when the manager told me he would not be fired.

Here's why the difference gap is smaller than you think: I can never be un-scared from that event.

That absolutely would be classed as a physical assault, not a psychological one, however, as I understand the law.

That's pretty standard for criminal rape cases, mind you.

There were laws in the US prohibiting revealing the identity of the victim in a rape case, but they got struck down as unconstitutional -- there's still a strong cultural norm in the media of not announcing it.

It's also a good idea. Being raped is bad enough; if the bar for consequences for your rapist becomes "I have to loudly announce my rape to the world", that's even worse.

This can be viewed as a web-of-trust situation. The raped person told the leaders of the Tor project, who believed them. You can now either wait for possible criminal charges that might be going on behind the scenes, or you can trust the Tor leaders.

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