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Comment by crankylinuxuser | Hacker News Reader

So, how much more "Accusations" will arise, that are acted upon with firings, and no criminal anything results?

I'm getting rather fed up with "Sexual * accusation leads to firing" again and again and again. How about proof/courtcase/dismissal if guilty? What about the rights of the accused, or are we going to stand for "Social Media Courtroom" slamming out guilty verdicts?

Edit: I'm trying to open up a dialog about the rights of accusers AND accused. The ramifications here are "Loss of income, loss of house, approaching poverty and destitution". The current trend is using "Virtual Mob Justice" - whom here agrees with this approach? I sure don't. I've seen what Mobs will get you, and it ain't pretty.

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Nearly all of the people tossed out of their jobs for these claims fessed up to being creeps.

A company doesn't need to win a court case to fire someone. You're not entitled to a job. This is America.

No one is locking these people up without a trial. However, being shunned by most of society does not require a court case.

That right there is what's wrong with US.

Someone makes a claim, another person loses their job. It may be true, or not. No recourse. Start the spiral of poverty, destitution, and homelessness. And they had better hope they get off that spiral before too long.

> However, being shunned by most of society does not require a court case.

It IS a problem when being "shunned by society" entails in living under a bridge or in a tent city.

Counterpoint in the UK, making defamatory statements makes you personally liable and in court the burden of proof is on you, you need to prove your claims.

In the US, you'd have to prove that they are lying which is obviously impossible.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_defamation_law

It's hard to think of a way to have a situation where both of: Women are safe from harassment in private and Men are safe from the possibility of being destroyed by three women who don't like them

Are true

> In the US, you'd have to prove that they are lying which is obviously impossible.

It doesn't sound like you understand US law very well.

Proving that someone is lying is not impossible.

Holding an entity liable for defamation is also not impossible accordingly. See: the recent Virginia case, which Rolling Stone magazine lost by jury verdict. [1]

You can sue someone in the US for defamation at any time you like. During the process, you can show the lack of evidence on the other side, and you can show the evidence to support your case. In a culture that strongly favors free speech, there should be a high burden to criminalization of opinion.

If someone claims you sexually assaulted them on June 24th at 8pm, at Some Restaurant - and you can demonstrate you were never there, you're very likely to win that in court. In the US, the consequences of losing such a defamation case, are typically very punishing, which helps to limit any kind of actual free-for-all of false accusations.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/05/business/media/rolling-st...

That's not what's typically been happening.

In most cases, at least when considering the higher-profile ones of the last few weeks, stories have been about multiple occurrences. The reporting typically identifies a pattern of behavior from multiple sources who were confirmed to have told friends, family, or colleagues at the time of the incident.

If a single, unverifiable account was thought to be sufficient, I'd be with you. But when you have multiple occurrences and patterns, you can argue that it's clear that the person is creating a toxic work environment and can be dealt with more swiftly than the legal process.

> If a single, unverifiable account was thought to be sufficient, I'd be with you.

My understanding (based, I admit, on a brief reading of the BBC's report, so maybe there's lots more I haven't seen) of the MPR/Garrison Keillor case seems like an example of that.

Steve Jurvetson's case is also based on a single account. Granted his decision to step down was his, but it exemplifies the power of the accuser.

Most of these cases have had the accused admitting they did it, or their actions being a public secret. You might want to take a good hard look at why your first reaction to this (very positive) development of men being held accountable for their misbehavior is to cry wolf about a problem that is not there.

> Nearly all of the people tossed out of their jobs for these claims fessed up to being creeps.

I agree, as far as we know this is what has been happening. An exception being Roy Moore, as far as I know he has stridently denied the accusations made against him.

I do think GP has identified a slippery slope. Not everyone is honorable and some people will start to get the idea that they can take down a boss they don't like by simply leveling a sexual assault charge. If in today's climate there is a presumption of guilt rather than innocence, or even an attitude "easier to fire him than deal with an investigation" then pray you're never on the wrong side of that scenario.

I expect many powerful men to adopt Mike Pence's philosophy - never being alone with a woman unless it's his wife - to manage the risk of (potentially fake) accusations.

As various people have pointed out on twitter, that way reconstructs the "boy's club"; it becomes impossible for women to access the necessary social networks to climb in some careers if they can't have meetings that men can.

Well, yeah.

Hell, and there a ton of craziness that goes on in the dating scene. If I was still dating, I'd record with my phone, to prove "No, (s)he did consent. Here's the proof." The opposite of this, is fighting off a potential rape allegation. That scares the living fuck out of me, since a buddy had that happen.

But maybe there's a case for a device that records, in a sealed storage. Think of it as insurance on claims of wrongdoing.

I've also been sexually harassed by a manager (I'm a guy, manager was a woman). Worked at a subway. She grabbed my ass deep enough she fondled my testicles. Turns out the district manager came in the back door. Fired her on the spot. Makes me a weird exception, in that it was female doing to male subordinate, and it was solved.

The conjecture that you can easily take down someone with a false accusation is disproven by the fact that every single case I've heard of has involved multiple accusers, photographic evidence, and/or admissions by the perpetrators.

It's widely reported that, for example, the Washington Post ran an in-depth investigation into one accuser of Roy Moore, and found out she was lying to discredit their reporting. They did this due diligence even after every sane person was already convinced that Roy Moore was a creep. So, presumably, they would have had more reason to believe her than anyone accusing someone previously not connected to such allegations.

Moore is a special case. He was removed from the bench for failing to follow the law. Twice.

You're confusing separate processes with very different difficulty levels. A criminal case requires a high standard of evidence and it's likely that it wouldn't be proven beyond a reasonable doubt (which is generally considered a feature given the dangers of false imprisonment).

What you're talking about is more in the realms of civil cases and business cases, where the burden of proof is smaller. In this case, if he felt that this was untrue he could sue under the existing libel laws. The reason that doesn't happen in most of these cases is that there actually is a fair amount of proof but it just hadn't been acted on and the person involved doesn't want to actually drag that evidence into the public scrutiny of a trial.

I don't doubt for a moment that there are lots of legitimate complaints, and people (especially the rich/powerful) who have acted with impunity for years and fully deserve to be held to account. However, the current culture of insta-trial by social and/or mass media, and the assumption of guilt on the basis of unproven allegations, troubles me greatly. Anyone remember the Salem witch trials?

Due process, standards of evidence, and so on were invented for some good reasons, and on this particular topic we seem to be prepared to ignore all that. Sadly, at the moment I don't see how we're going to restore some kind of balance between the rights of the accuser and the accused.

> I don't doubt for a moment that there are lots of legitimate complaints, and people (especially the rich/powerful) who have acted with impunity for years and fully deserve to be held to account.

Absolutely. And some of the evidence proving it that Ive seen has been damning. I don't doubt that powerful people get away with sexual assault.

This quote comes to mind: "And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything." ~Donald J Trump.

> However, the current culture of insta-trial by social and/or mass media, and the assumption of guilt on the basis of unproven allegations, troubles me greatly. Anyone remember the Salem witch trials?

I look at "Social Media" as a form of a lynch mob. It's extrajudicial, and amounts to end the livelihood of a person. If they did something wrong, sure, nail their ass to a wall. But I'm done with "Twitter Justice", "Facebook Social-Death Squads" and the like. Destroying someone's ability to survive is even more cruel than throwing them in a jail cell where they are provided for.

> Due process, standards of evidence, and so on were invented for some good reasons, and on this particular topic we seem to be prepared to ignore all that. Sadly, at the moment I don't see how we're going to restore some kind of balance between the rights of the accuser and the accused.

Look at the responses I've received thus far. They defend companies doing whatever they want. That's what we're up against. Doesn't matter if it's your livelihood at stake. Just hope $you aren't the next 15 minute subject of the "Internet Death Squad".

> powerful people get away with sexual assault.

> they let you do it.

How is it assault if the other party is onboard ?

Not sure if this is a serious question or not, but "let" in the sense of "didn't complain" is not really the same thing as consent. Generally the effect of power and intimidation is to render people passive in these situations.

If I hold a gun to your head, and "Ask" if I can fondle you, you're probably going to say yes. It's also pretty blatantly illegal. I don't think I need to list the laws.

Instead, if I threaten you with job loss and blackballing in the industry, and "Ask" if I can fondle you, you're probably going to say yes.

Coercion, blackmailing, and credible threats are also all against the law. Criminal law.

After decades of ignoring the plight of the victims, maybe its ok for the rest of us to take a little heat for once. Not a perfect world; but I'm content for this to run its course. Lest we be perceived as saying "If even one man gets hurt unjustly by this, its not worth all the women helped"

In the US, the accused have very few rights to continued employment unless they are unionized, or part of the permanent civil service, or have an exceptional personal contract providing such rights. That's what “at will employment” means.

What rights? This isn't criminal charges (usually). This is multiple people accusing him, some of those aren't even victims. A company doesn't need to wait for criminal charges. You have no right to be hired.

Breaches of an employer's code of conduct are not something that get assessed in court.

As to why this stuff doesn't get dealt with in public? "They all asked not to be identified, citing fears over the investor’s history of filing lawsuits and concerns that he could wield his influence in the tech industry to ruin their careers. Earlier this year, Pishevar got a U.K. court to prohibit a local newspaper from reporting on his arrest following a rape allegation against him. London police investigated and didn’t charge him."

This is probably a good day to have this discussion actually. In San Francisco an undocumented immigrant admits that he fired in illegal weapon that results in the death of an innocent woman, but due to technicalities apparently supported by evidence I'm not familiar with, he is acquitted of the more serious charges and will be deported for the 5th or 6th time.

Republicans are angry, and would rather a situation in which he gets some serious punishment. There are good reasons why he can't be tried again for the same incident with different charges and why they can't just charge him with conflicting accusations and let the subsequent investigation and trial determine which ones stick. Democrats have generally disagreed, largely because he's been picked up as an argument for stronger immigration laws and enforcement

And yet there's also a similar movement among liberal circles towards ruining people's lives because of accusations that have not been proved until rules of law because they're obviously scum, just like Republicans think this guy is.

In general we seem to have abandoned the rule of law everywhere but in most actual courts of law because of people we want to villify. And they're often actually terrible people, but we're on a slippery slope that we can't see because all the rhetoric is playing on people's emotions.

The court of public opinion is usually a last resort. Generally the accusers don't want to go public - after all, then their name is attached to the thing forever too. And they get a lot of abuse as a result too.

If you don't want this stuff dealt with in public, the procedures for dealing with it in private have to work. And hitherto they generally haven't.

Well unfortunately the court of public opinion is pushing actual legal systems in directions that I think a lot of people are unhappy with too. I think it's the court of public opinion that we need to fix because of the impact it has elsewhere. I'm not generally a fan of Jeremy Clarkson's politics, but I think he makes a good point that we often think many of the people around us in public are morons but that being judged by a jury of those morons is a good idea, as opposed to being judged by the mature, experienced and very well-educated judge. Now obviously I'm not against juries and I'm not for authoritarian centralized judicial systems, but generally both conservatives and liberals seem increasingly willingly to trash people's reputations or call for harsh punishments because of an accusation and they only care for a methodical process of reviewing evidence and testimony and maintaining innocence until proof of guilt if they like the person. I mean police shootings are another issue like this - listen to the public discourse and virtually everyone has made up their mind about what should happen before any video is releases, and when video is released everyone sticks to the decision they already made before seeing it. Maybe we never had it, but most people seem to have lost the ability to withhold mental judgment until seeing it, and instead of people who think some shootings were understandable and others were abuses of authority, you have a lot of people who think they're virtually all one or the other.

What is the Internet Mob capable of?

Go ask the person that Redditers highlighted as "guilty" in the Boston bombing. He didn't do anything wrong, and ended up dead as a result.

Its also why Reddit now does livethreads to control Doxxing and finger pointing.

Also (unable to edit my original reply now) - I'm not saying this stuff shouldn't be dealt with in public. If the appropriate private channels haven't addressed the wrongdoing, your right to go public should absolutely be exercised if the victim is okay with all the unpleasantness that usually entails. I'm just saying the public they go to needs to be a bit more pragmatic and fair than lynching a person they assume did something they don't like (or on the contrary, turning a blind eye because of politics that sway them the other way).

The problem is the way people react, not the fact that it was taken public. Private channels should have worked too - that's also a problem.

Accusations aren't always true. Here's a news item where an organisation out to defame 'targets' got caught when they were trying to use a news platform to spread their fake news: "A woman approached The Post with dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation." [1]

I suppose if the accusation is untrue they can sue the company for being unfairly fired due to untrue rumours. For those who are self-employed that's not gonna help though.

As a society we should be wary for a shift if burden of proof but that goes for all controversial subjects including terrorism, nazism, paedophilia, and sexual abuse. Journalists being able to put time and effort into research is an important tool and pillar for that goal.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/a-woman-approa...

The majority of creeps who've been outed recently have admitted wrongdoing (post outing of course). This is largely to mitigate the damage and diminish the outrage; hoping that something or someone steals the spotlight. And some of the more egregious creeps completely deny despite overwhelming evidence and claims. This is also to be expected since they have nothing to lose.

The third response is to deny a limited claim. Someone like Jeremy Piven comes to mind. He steadfastly denies the charge against him.

I think it's reasonable to assume that some of the charges are fraudulent; people are human and prone to the human condition. But when there's a preponderance of evidence, it's pretty easy to tell who's being disingenuous.

First, not every accusation brought up is necessarily criminal, but could open the company to civil liability or just point out people the company considers toxic. Second, I don't think anyone has been fired off of a single non-criminal accusation. The ones I have seen all have multiple accusers and corroboration.

As an aside, I am a bit concerned how many of the accusations are being lumped together. A boss hitting on a subordinate is very different than a forcible rape. Both are wrong and should be addressed, but grouping them together lessens the seriousness of the later IMO.

> Second, I don't think anyone has been fired off of a single non-criminal accusation.

Yes. Look at how the accusation against George Takei never took off. It was one person. With everyone else (e.g. Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K., Eddie Berganza, John Lasseter), it was well-known in certain circles that the person was a creep, and there were multiple independent accusations. Takei, on the other hand, had a reputation for being an absolute gentleman in a time when the gay scene was notoriously grabby.

I hope we'll see many more victims come forward, until such time that people people like you no longer use scare-quotes around the word "accusations". That would be a leap forward. For justice, for the victims, and for grammar (these are real accusations–the doubt you're trying to emphasise is already built-in).

Most of the accusations we've recently heard of also speak of actions that aren't crimes. Criminal law allows you to give as many sex toys to your interns as you want. Employment law, and common decency, are something different. They also don't require the standard of proof you're demanding.

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