Lots of people commit crimes and deny them. To me, the idea that an apparently disconnected set of women would all come forward with similar stories set off serious alarm bells. Why would a series of women all accuse the same man?
Of course, we can still wait for this to make it's way through court, but I feel your defensiveness is too strong in the other direction, going straight to accusing all the women of being liars.
Just checking, but you seem to be saying that these alleged rapists MUST ALWAYS have presumption of innocence, but not these women who are clearly defaming people. Is that what you're saying?
Are you that naive? Evidence and witness testimony can be easily fabricated by authorities (happens all the time), especially when the authorities are out to get someone and have political and personal reasons to do so. What's your reasoning for believing these women's testimony other than made up fact by police?
If the allegation is evidence then we have to treat the denial as evidence too. Which one do we weigh more? We're in the same position as we were before the allegation was made. We still have to assume the accused is innocent, because that's what we assumed before the allegation was made.
My use of "unpacking" was not serious and in fact meant to be over-the-top condescending, as yours was.
I agree that it is not productive to continue this conversation. But for the record if you decide to argue against a bedrock ethical principle like the presumption of innocence, you should expect some pushback.
In the future you could probably earn more respect in debate, and perhaps even friends, by being less snarky and more respectful/charitable towards your opponent
Strictly speaking, that's an unproven allegation so, on the principle of "innocent until proven guilty", yes, I'm inclined to give the benefit of the doubt.
If, on the other hand, it turns out that the allegations are true, then I would hope to see people serving time in jail.
If this was a he said she said case then you would have a point. We should all wait until the facts come out before making a judgement. But, there are so many corroborating accusations from her fellow female peers that makes it very hard to not to believe her story. You do not make a public statement that you have corroborating accusations from your fellow female peers without being absolutely certain because if those claims are discredited then you've instantly lost your credibility.
And the women were believed. Their accusation was not dismissed, but taken seriously, an investigation started etc.
However, that is not the same thing as "accusation = guilt".
We live in the former world, not in the latter. Fortunately. And I am pretty sure he was describing the former, not the latter. And if he was describing the former, then he was simply wrong.
I understand your PoV. I would say it would be extremely rare for a woman (or man) to make baseless accusations from uncertain interpretations.
People who bring forward accusations are typically people who've had the same untoward thing done to them repeatedly.
That said, one has to acknowledge there are genuinely malicious people --but they typically have a pattern and it will not be their first time making false accusations.
In this case, and the case with Andy Rubin, I immediately thought "these people are guilty" - without evidence, without even knowing them or having spoken to them or otherwise having any sort of real judgement about their character.
I had to step back and realize that I was jumping to a conclusion prematurely.
In case you are not familiar with how the law works (outside of the court of social media), an accusation, no matter how believable, is not damning evidence - even when multiple accusations come to light. Objectivity is extremely important in these situations because it has already been demonstrated that our instincts are not impartial.
I'm not saying that any given person is or is not guilty, just that they deserve a fair trial.
Men and women both make up crazy stories all the time to attack other people. It's incontraverible evidence that makes it clear one side isn't lying. It seems like she has good evidence so it's not s/he said situation anyhow.
It's profoundly easy to be fooled by someone who's bent on fooling you. We know that "Jackie" from the story was misleading both Rolling Stone and its reporter Sabrina Ruben-Erdely.
I can see a strong case for negligence claims against RS and Ruben-Erdly. Both should have pursued fact-checking and cross-referencing single-source claims, especially when made against other people and institutions. And that's pretty much what the court here has found.
I would strongly support criminal claims against "Jackie".
-Erdely. Both sh
"Innocent before proven guilty" is an important concept, but, I wouldn't pin the women as guilty of lying either
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