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Comment by cortesoft | Hacker News Reader

Burden of proof for what? To charge him with a crime? Sure.

But random people are free to make whatever conclusions about him that they want, with as little or as much evidence as they personally require to render their judgement. You don’t get to tell other people how they should form their opinions.

It isn’t fair, but there is no other way for the world to work. Everyone has their own criteria for judging people... we can put legal requirements on some things (like what criteria you can use to determine if you hire someone, or rent them an apartment, or let them into your store), but people are free to dislike someone for whatever reason they want.

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We're in a weird space that previous models don't map very well to. For example, the legal system doesn't map because virtually none of the things people are doing on social media are illegal, and probably shouldn't be. On the other hand, the previous social models, such as gossip ("random people freely making whatever conclusions they want") don't apply because their potential for destructive effects are relatively circumscribed.

Maybe one analogy would be the way that gossip and rumour in a very small town could harm a person, such as by affecting their livelihood, their family, and so on. Now that we have the global village, the "small town" is basically everybody. I see the current debates about "cancel culture" or whatever as a messy attempt to work out norms for this new space. We're probably still in the early stage of those getting worked out.

You can tell someone what good criteria are for wines, why not forming opinions? They're not obligated to listen to you, but I don't get saying that you can't advise.

Beyond that though, when our opinions have consequences, we have an obligation to form them carefully when they affect others. Not being able to force someone to behave well doesn't mean there aren't reasonable criteria available for them.

What consequence does my choosing to believe either side in this story have?

Now, if I (or someone else) harass the guy over the accusation, then that is a problem (and there should be consequences), but belief is personal.

What do you call a mob of people piling on someone and causing them to lose friends, opportunities and a healthy state-of-mind? A belief system?

You're free to believe whatever you want, but if you are wrong and they didn't do it, someone was just publicly executed for the wrong reasons.

You're also free to not care about any of that, but some people want to be cautious not to pile on without evidence.

Are you really arguing it's fine if I accused you of something and convinced everyone of that, without ever providing any evidence? And when you said "no, I didn't do that, here's some evidence," people should shrug it off because why does if matter what side they believe? After all, they are free to judge you based on anything they want, as long as they're not threatening your life or firing you, right?

No one was arguing you can't judge people based on any arbitrary thing you can come up with. It becomes an issue when you use that belief to actively destroy their life, possibly for no reason at all.

"...publicly executed..."?

While I did not mean that and just failed at English, one can easily find documented instances of actual murders and lynch mobs directly caused by lies being spread on social media, so, yes?

The question was about how someone should form their opinions, and whether we can tell others how they ought to do that. Lots of our opinions do affect others (e.g., if they should be hired, if one should help them, how we treat their reputations), so it's appropriate to point out what good and bad criteria are.

If an opinion being held doesn't have any practical ramifications for others, it's not really a big deal to have opinions formed on a questionable basis, except that good judgment tends to be a habitual process, so doing it with bad criteria with low stakes could affect how we form them when the stakes are higher.

> Burden of proof for what?

For me to believe their accusations. It's not just something that exists in the courts, it's a principle that many (most?) people adhere to in their lives. If you have one co-worker who accuses the other of stealing their phone, would you punish the accused without first asking how they know they stole it or looking at camera footage of the time of the alleged theft?

It's not illegal for you to believe unsubstantiated accusations (not just unsubstantiated, but unsubstantiated in the face of exculpatory evidence). It's not illegal for a boss to fire an employee over an unsubstantiated accusation. Legal, but still harmful to society.

Punishment or firing is different than believing or not believing. I agree you should have a higher burden of proof before doing those things.

But you are free to believe whatever you want.

Personally, I don’t hold a belief either way about this person. I neither believe or disbelieve them.

Why don't you believe either way? If the "he's creepy" side had provided their "curated receipts" would you believe them?

As it stands, he's provided receipts and the other side hasn't, so for me any reasonable person believes the person with the receipts.

And sure, we can't force people to form opinions in one way or another, but we absolutely can (and arguably should) criticize people who form their opinions in a way that is best modeled after a lynch mob, in the exact same way I would react to a... real life lynch mob.

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