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.
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.
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.
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.