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Comment by noobermin | Hacker News Reader

I'm sure what your brother faced is terrible but how exactly does this relate to the story?

Behavior like this should be punished within the framework of the civil and criminal court system. The court of public opinion has no rules as to the validity of evidence introduced, and relies on informal enforcement mechanisms as well, which are prone to abuse.

The court of public opinion still thinks that the riots in Kenosha were justified (the actual courts heard and saw real evidence that determined that Mr. Blake was indeed sexually assualting his ex and was indeed reaching for a knife when he was shot). The court of public opinion thought that the invasion of Iraq in 2003 was justified because they thought Saddam helped OBL. The recent case of the teenage girl shot in Columbus featured the Court of Public Opinion weighing in that the girl should have been allowed to stab the other girl pinned against that car, and the cop should have "shot her in the leg", which any expert on use of force would immediately explain would not have worked. Why? Because the public as a whole is filled with smart individuals, but an an aggregate level are a bunch of moronic lemmings, like all large groups of people are.

You've listed a number of disparately connected recent news events and referred to some ominous "Court of Public Opinion" which has come to some perspective as if it somehow unites them. My point is you're drawing some thread and connecting this all to your brother. I'll echo again something I said in another reply, I'm not sure how analogous or connected these things are. It sounds mostly like your brother had his word against another accusation, and HR sided against him. Is HR now the "court of public opinion?" I thought that qualifies as due process in this case.

Again you're making some bigger point only you seem to be hearing but spell it out for me and for everyone else.

It was an example of how this method can be abused comparing to the criminal justice system.

its a reminder that mob justice is really terrible when it is wrong. we dont have all the facts. we should absolutely take precautions from this guy causing further harm, but the rape accusation needs to go thru the legal process including allowing the accused to defend themselves.

My point is that these are not that analogous. The linked account is one of many accusations against John Pretty. What the comment is referring to is an accusation that sounds like it's one person's word against another and primarily a conflict confined to one HR department. It isn't really "mob justice" then, it's HR siding with one party.

Well, in this instance given that his coworkers sent him a gift basket, it sounds like the mob came to the right conclusions while the institution took the wrong action.

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