It’s time to weaponize the “whisper network”

The potential for anonymous slander is too high for a real system like this to be justified. Whispers turn to rumors which turn to falsehoods. Someone interpreted as being "creepy" in texts by one woman shouldn't have his life ruined by an anonymous post on a spreadsheet.

>We must show that the accused, not the accuser, will suffer when a case goes public, and do so by building institutions of support for victims who come forward.

Shouldn't it be "that the one proven guilty will suffer"?

With effective assumption of innocence for accused and accuser.

(No "someone said x did y so x must be guilty" and no "nah, z is just claiming that for attention" without proof)

They are justifying lynch mobs.

On top of this they seem to live in a fantasy land where these tools they create will only be used for their own agendas.

The abuse they are trying to justify is on par with the perpetrators abuse they are trying to stop.

Wrong on many many levels.

How about a system where accusations are entered and kept encrypted until enough actual people enter similar ones and the info is released (maybe to a Wikileaks type organization for verification) automatically? The subject could be notified if they get n complaints. The accusations would have to be enough that there would be an excellent chance of conviction. I think it is an issue for all people in power, not simply media types. Because of the power of the subjects there would have to be some way to avoid the courts shutting it down too though. Perhaps an Ether smart contract? It would never catch all the bad people in the world but could at least put some checks on or even stop the powerful serial offender. I know this is a bit "Pollyanna-Technical" "solution" to a human problem but it is the best I can think of given the adversarial court system, inequities of money, and all that. Also, I don't think one should limit it to particular crimes. On my phone: apologies for such a disorganized post.

Reporters were trying to weaponize the whisper network against Weinstein for years. They were part of the network, and managed to contact a number of his victims.

But they couldn't get anyone to go on the record, for (I hope) obvious reasons. The woman who went to the police had her case dropped and her name splashed across gossip magazines, probably stories planted by Weinstein. Without someone on record there wasn't a story that would pass journalistic standards.

Maybe we should relax those standards, I don't know. If a reporter has a dozen separate accusers with correlated stories who are not mutually in contact, maybe they should be able to publish without having to get any of the accusers to put their name to it. But would it have the same effect as having accusations with names attached? Or would the accused just say "I won't respond to anonymous allegations" and then the story goes away.

This advocates for the destruction of the presumption of innocence principle[1]. What could go possibly wrong?

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presumption_of_innocence

As both a victim of rape (that was prosecuted in court) and someone who was falsely accused of sexual harassment (I never have done anything that could be construed as such), this is terrifying.

The whisper network is already weaponized. It makes victims of the innocent and undermines the innocence of those who already victims.

The only just way to proceed is to assume innocence until proven guilty.

The discussion around this is becoming deeply disturbing.