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Comment by dominotw | Hacker News Reader

Why can't we put these people behind bars. What is going on, is this not really a crime in societies eyes.

A lot of it is criminal, but a lot of it also isn't. A boss repeatedly asking a subordinate for a blow job, for example. There's company internal recourse, probably civil recourse...but you won't go to jail for it, at least in the US.

People coming forward is step one. Those people feeling like they can go through with pressing charges and going to court is step two.

What laws did he break, what evidence is there, where's the police reports?

Because the punishment should fit the crime.

Jail for rape, jail for physical assault. But jail for verbal intimidation and dangling career prospects? That is probably too much.

At least in the case of the sexual harassment (not physical assault), these guys are getting a proportionally bad remedy (being fired, ostracized, etc)

Public accusation != conviction of crime

That's OK. The Internet Mob agrees and will "Execute" anyone they see fit via job loss, death threats, vandalism, and destitution. But, that's OK, at least according to the comments I received.

For some reason, "We're" happy with extralegal punishments, and then sweeping them away as some sort of 'rights of the employers'. More and more claims are being made by a single person, and used to fire and blackball them. It's Salem Witch Trials all over again, but with respect to "Sexual Harassment".

THIS is a problem:

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/internet-shaming-when-mob-justi...

https://www.newstatesman.com/voices/2014/01/dangers-public-s...

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/dec/20/social-media-t...

https://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/1d34nj/student_w...

Edit: I see the -1's hit me again. I've made the case there is some real problems with the way Mob Justice is being handled. That includes up to the death of people indicated. Now I'm not calling for the protection of sexual predators. I AM calling for due process before we start throwing people under the bus.

False reports are a real thing, and very common unfortunately.

Not very common at all, in fact.

And almost certainly irrelevant to the story at hand.

https://qz.com/980766/the-truth-about-false-rape-accusations...

Impossible to know. I don't care what qz.com claims. Usually this stuff is done discretely so only 2 people really know what happened. There is also the fuzzy line between trying to laid and outright harassment.

> There is also the fuzzy line between

there isn't necessarily a line. if you keep "trying to get laid" after being told someone wasn't interested, you're doing both.

I don't think it works like this

M: Can I have sex with you?

F: no you cannot have sex with me.

i don't think so either. at least, i haven't really seen it.

It's very clear when only one person is trying to get laid.

Also, the default view should be to assume a person under 30 does not want to have a casual fling with a 50 year old, overweight executive.

> 30 does not want to have a casual fling with a 50 year old, overweight executive.

This happens way more than you imagine. I've known several cases myself.

It's still not the default.

Causal hookups are about physical attraction, for both men and women. And if genders were reversed, and this was an overweight, 50 year old woman trying to hookup with young, good looking guys, the men here would think to themselves, "eww, no."

That is exactly what these young women thought (and said as much in the article)!

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