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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

What is the "strong signal"? It takes three clicks to report anyone for anything.

I agree, even a handful of reports in a short period could have been orchestrated as a payback.

However surely you could agree that there is a reasonable line somewhere.

If, over the course of several months, multiple people with seemingly no connection to each other report the same problematic person, then is there ANY reason to not issue a ban?

I feel like "just issue a ban" trivializes the complexity of this: banning one account does basically nothing, and they can just create a new account. Multiple people often have the same name, so you can't just ban everyone with that name. It's trivial to take new pictures, etc..

That leaves, what, asking a private company to do facial recognition scans on all new users? Requiring them to present official government ID ala the recent EU laws?

Perfect is the enemy of good.

Honestly I’d prefer a dating app that checks identity and prohibits duplicate accounts

If your safety system is "we'll have to wait till this person rapes several women over the course of many months" then it is meaningless to begin with. And they can then create another profile in seconds on any of the dozens of other apps out there. So no one is safer.

The only reasonable line is - act on the first report (and every single other report), and work closely with the police. But if the victim doesn't want to involve the police then what can you even do?

Best I can do is act on it and eat a massive defamation lawsuit. If you think the $1 Billion Alex Jones was ordered to pay for saying parents lied about dead kids was a lot, imagine how big it would be if someone accused or insinuated a bunch of people of being rapists based on unvetted reports.

They don't need to make the ban public. But not stating publicly that a person did something, they cannot have defamed that person.

I wonder about these kind of crime sprees. It the person wishing to be arrested or something?

A cardiologist life is not usually falling apart. so I wonder why this sort of madness would be a thing. Are they thinking nobody would believe the women?

Multiple reports from multiple users? The linked article starts with this.

"Hey friends! This guy was a jerk to me at my date. Please file a rape report with Hinge to get him banned! Toodles :)"

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