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Public false rape/sexual harassment accusations should be a jailable offense.
Hear me out, if you don't go public with a false rape accusation, but only report it to the police, and it gets proven false, you mostly waste time for the law enforcers, and the accused, while having gone through some hardship, at least can recover his life back to normal quick enough.
If you go public with it, you also waste time of maybe millions of people who learn about the accusation and waste time either white knighting or trying to figure out if the claim is likely true or false. On top of that, even assuming the false claim gets proven 100% false (which is unlikely, since it can be insanely difficult to prove something didn't happen, and it's an unreasonable legal standard to hold to), very few people of those that heard about the initial claim will also hear about the accused's innocence, and even fewer will actually believe it, leaving the accused forever a pariah, unable to resume his normal life. Thus, much more damage is being caused to not only the accused but to society itself once you make your false rape claim public, and you should be punished accordingly for it.
Public false rape/sexual harassment accusations should be a jailable offense.
@architect @alyx False rape accusations made publicly are subject to liable, right? That is just a civil offense. Should it be criminal? ... eh ... that starts to cross into some weird freedom of speech grounds. I want to hear a civil rights attorney's take on this.
Public false rape/sexual harassment accusations should be a jailable offense.
re: Public false rape/sexual harassment accusations should be a jailable offense.
the legal case (IANAL) is weirder and depends on things like anti-slapp laws.
firstly can you affirmatively prove the rape is false? if so you will probably still lose the defamation suit to chicanery (cf. Vic lost a TCPA hearing because the judge was running it like a jury-less bench hearing, even though TCPA explicitly says all deference wrt. evidence goes to the plantiff.)
if you can't affirmatively prove it to be false, you won't really win public opinion. depending on jurisdiction they may be required to prove the rape was true (truth as an affirmative defense) but not every place is reasonable and some have broken anti-defamation laws that don't necessarily require someone to retract or prove their statement.
Public false rape/sexual harassment accusations should be a jailable offense.
@alyx It also gives considerable protection to the real rapists. Like the boy who cried wolf, when the wolves really come, everyone just thinks it’s another whiny attention whore who’s totally faking it. If we make pariahs out of enough good people, it even starts to seem like rape itself isn’t all that bad, because all the “rapists” keep turning out to be good people.
Public false rape/sexual harassment accusations should be a jailable offense.
Public false rape/sexual harassment accusations should be a jailable offense.
@Glowie
But the threat of punishment isn't if they can't substantiate their claims, but if it is proovable that they lied on purpose.
Public false rape/sexual harassment accusations should be a jailable offense.
@alyx public claims like this also endanger their life with the potential for vigilantes trying to enact justice where the law has "failed".
False rape accusations are a huge issue, you can effectively end someones life without any evidence or recourse.