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These stories leave a bad taste in my mouth. It hasn't yet gone to court, so the guys allegations could be really be anything from the God's honest truth all th

• jacob_rezi 4y ago
  What was the proof? Very fortunate indeed!
  • grapehut 4y ago
    We had a gaming party at work on a Friday afternoon, and I happened to have recorded my games. Reviewing it, I found I did play against her (and 2 others) in a free-for all. But it was clear she just fabricated the events. Funnily enough while I was playing her, I didn't even know it was her (it was a woman I barely knew and only had spoken to a couple of times). Anyway, presented with the actual recording she dropped the entire thing and yet managed to have absolutely zero personal or professional repercussions.
    • rswskg 4y ago
      Then get on with making sure people are crystal clear what happened and how to protect themselves.
• newyankee 4y ago
  I know someone who lost his entire life, children and financial condition after being levied with false cases in urban India. Yes, even in a country like India in the urban and educated areas the laws are so anti male that there is not much a person can hope for. He was acquited after many years but the wife did not face any legal repercussions.
  • qazpot 4y ago
    India has had a long standing culture of torturing and burning because of dowry and female foeticide. However, the judicial system instead of fixing the problem went ahead and created lopsided insane laws which are now being exploited.
    • newyankee 4y ago
      The issue is instead of helping the women that actually need these laws, they are mostly exploited by a small minority of urban, educated women to their own ends.
      • scarmig 4y ago
        Well, urban educated women need protections too. The bitter pill to swallow is that there are people of all sexes and demographics who are shitty out there and whatever set of laws there is will be exploited by them for their own ends. Someone's inevitably going to get the short end of the stick, because the government actually isn't and can't be all knowing. (And nearly inevitably it's the disempowed who get the short end of the stick. Not because they're better than the powerful, but because the powerful are best positioned to take advantage of any social situation.)
        • newyankee 4y ago
          But all the laws are doing is allowing entrenched corrupt interests including the police, judiciary and few others to use them to their benefit. At least some reforms have been announced by Indian Supreme court, otherwise I doubt these one sided laws would be considered legal in any other democratic country. Surprisingly reading cases in any of the Global North makes me doubt that is the case.
• alwayslikethis 4y ago
  Is it possible to lawyer up and sue for defamation?
  • dannyr 4y ago
    Who is suing for defamation? The female boss or the guy?
• jb1991 4y ago
  I have also seen first-hand what happens when someone makes false allegations, and in this story so far we don't know what may or may not be false. I can see why the media would share this story, because it gets readers' attention and has all that sensational gossip-friendly content. At least they remark on having tried to reach the defendants for comment, though that could mean anything. The problem is that false allegations can be extraordinarily damaging in the short-term, though hopefully the injury evaporates in the long-term as truth takes over.
• kazinator 4y ago
  > irreparable damage This will slide off her like an over-easy egg off a teflon pan.
• knocte 4y ago
  > I'm still a bit jaded that there are absolutely zero repercussions of making false claims. There is this crime called "false accusation", you could have chased that?
  • rjzzleep 4y ago
    Last CCC I attended a free Assange activist told me that a lot of people approached her asking her why she would defend a rapist. Unfortunately for certain things one the damage is done most people will never notice when it changes. The thing that struck me as odd here is that the news article has photos and names. Not that it would make that much of a difference, but I do remember a time when suspects in the news would be named Ryan O. and Tiffany M. The people directly involved would obviously know who this is about. In one of the valley startups I worked, I disliked a colleague, because I thought she wasn't good at what she did. I do mumble things(unrelated to people) when I think and I'm a generally distant person to strangers. I kinda knew the feeling was mutual, but what I didn't know until a year after I'd left was that she went around telling people that I talked about her boobs, which was such an odd thing for me to comprehend.
    • Kiro 4y ago
      You make it sound like the allegations against Assange were completely fabricated and factually false. The charges were dropped because the statute of limitations expired, but that doesn't say anything about his actual guilt/innocence.
      • ivalm 4y ago
        I think the claim is that one is innocent until proven guilty. If they haven’t been convicted of sexual misconduct then calling them rapist is inappropriate.
      • stephen_g 4y ago
        That's not quite right actually - charges weren't dropped, because no charges were actually ever laid. Allegations were made, the case was dropped for lack of evidence, he was allowed to leave the country, another prosecutor later re-opened the case and then an Interpol Red notice was raised for 'questioning'. Anyway, if you change that to "the case was dropped" then that is technically correct, but the whole case was both so irregular and so politically convenient as to throw the allegations into serious doubt.
• scarmig 4y ago
  That's generally the right way to approach things. And fortunately it seems like there will be some kind of paper trail here, so it should be relatively easy for it to be resolved quickly (probably settled out of court, if his description of things is accurate). In other stories with other demographic characteristics, though, employers and the press (if it gets to that point) are not nearly so judicious in their evaluations.
• galacticaactual 4y ago
  Curious where this sentiment was when all the metoo stuff was happening. The slightest departure from “trust all women” or anything calling for presumption of innocence was met with vitriolic blowback.
• throwaway_12132 4y ago
  [flagged]
  • grapehut 4y ago
    You've made the wrong takeaway. I was falsely accused of sexual assault by a woman. It has nothing to do with gender. It definitely can cut both ways.
    • throwaway_12132 4y ago
      It has everything to do with gender, she only made that accusation because of her gender. She would got away with no proof and end your career if you had no proof
• notrealme1234 4y ago
  Didn't want to post from my main account to avoid any references and trails. It goes beyond just sexual harassment at work. I was accused by my ex wife. Even before any trials or anything: I lost my job, banks, housing and pretty much anything that requires a background check. I fought this for a year, and everything was dropped, because her friend came as witnesses and explained how she and my ex wife planned on setting me up, because I asked for divorce after found out about afair. Even with all charges dropped, case sealed, I guess background agencies still have record of it, and I still get rejected. The whole guilty until proven otherwise can ruin anyone's life, and the accusor in my case walked away completely untouched.
  • atkailash 4y ago
    [dead]
  • Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
    Couldn't you sue for damage after that? It seems like you got a great damage and it was proven in court that it's been caused by a lie
    • notrealme1234 4y ago
      Yes, in civil court. The DA office won't take on false accusations charges. Edit: I could sue her, but nothing will come of it, she's completely broke, alone and live rent free taking care of old lady with dementia. And as of me, idk, never held grudge or wanted any vengeance upon anyone, it's easier to just cut ties, and never be associated with her
      • thinking4real 4y ago
        You do you, but your inaction is going to ensure more and more men go through this.
        • underdeserver 4y ago
          More men are going to go through this regardless of whether he sues or not. I can't imagine people who would do this kind of thing being deterred by a small civil claims court case somewhere random.
• Fire-Dragon-DoL 4y ago
  Question: is it possible that to have repercussions you have to counter sue, it's just that there are no repercussions during the case against you? Like, that woman literally lied in court, causing you financial, psychological and image damage, couldn't you have sued for this? Theoretically speaking, I'm saying.
  • grapehut 4y ago
    I think it would require pretty exceptional circumstances to make any sense to try counter-sue. Like in my case I have pretty conclusive proof that part of her allegation is a lie. And that makes her look sufficiently bad that she's wiling to drop the whole thing. But if I now tried to sue her, she'd naturally have to revert to asserting her allegations were true in the first place. But only she made some mistakes when remembering the details (oh sorry, wrong event! Trauma!). And I believe I would look vindictive and aggressive, and my real concrete proof is that one part of her allegation is a lie. For me, it's 10000x easier to just count my blessings than personally consider anything of the sort. I only once briefly entertained the idea just to tarnish her own reputation to the point she would never be able to falsely accuse anyone again.
• crossroadsguy 4y ago
  The ugly truth is — false sexual harassment complaint is one those things in life you keep hoping and praying it never happens to you. But if it does you’re screwed one way or the other. The stigma that it “automatically” brings just doesn’t go away. It just doesn’t. You forever become “that” person. And I really don’t know how it can be fixed. That’s just how it is.
  • HideousKojima 4y ago
    The Billy Graham/Mike Pence rule is your best bet: don't let yourself be in any situation where a false accusation could arise. Of course you'll be accused of being a sexist/misogynist/whatever instead but that's easier to ignore or overcome than false accusations of sexual harassment.
    • sokoloff 4y ago
      Hard disagree. If I decide I can have a closed-door 1:1 or a lunch 1:1 with some of my direct reports but not with any that are female, I’m inherently discriminating against them. I’d way rather treat all employees fairly and fade a <1% chance of a false accusation than to treat employees unequally and cut that chance in half.
      • bratbag 4y ago
        At what percentage risk would you change your mind on that?
        • sokoloff 4y ago
          Not sure. Probably 5% or so, at which point I’d pass on a leadership role rather than discriminating against some employees.
      • undersuit 4y ago
        "Odd that sokoloff only has private lunches with the new kid that just graduated." You're not saving yourself from any false accusations. The people you have closed door sessions can accuse you of SA regardless if you're attracted to them.
• riedel 4y ago
  I really wonder about press standards in this case. Both parties are not public figures. Is it normal 8n the US that both are named and pictures are published. I think here in Germany typically at least a pseudonym would be assigned to protect the individuals. Is there any law to protect personality rights in the US?
  • Larrikin 4y ago
    No, there should be, but then politicians couldn't post mug shots of minorities when they are trying to scaremonger votes.
  • roarcher 4y ago
    > Is there any law to protect personality rights in the US? Not really. Ever see those "Florida Man" memes? The reason that's a thing isn't because people in Florida are particularly crazy. It's because public records are exceptionally easy to access in Florida, and those include police reports. And anything that's public record is fair game for the media. In some states (I believe Georgia is one), there are regular publications with mugshots of people who were recently arrested in the local area. Not convicted of anything, just arrested. You can buy them at pretty much any gas station or convenience store. Get arrested for, say, public intoxication, and all your friends and acquaintances may just see your photo in the checkout line the next day. Media vultures will not hesitate to cash in on your humiliation.
    • GauntletWizard 4y ago
      Those places are far healthier in terms of trust, because if you fuck up and end up in the drunk tank, everyone knows the sordid details. Everyone takes a piss at your dumb mugshot and moves on. In the societies where those records are hidden, you never know what skeletons someone has in their closet.
      • roarcher 4y ago
        I'm talking about arrests, not convictions. You are aware that it's possible to be arrested for a crime you didn't commit, yes? And for far more reputation-destroying things than landing in a drunk tank for a night? How would you like for everyone to "know" about the skeletons in your closet that don't actually exist? Also, if you have any evidence whatsoever that "those places are far healthier in terms of trust", I'd be keen to see it.
• Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
  Not quite as damaging, but I was accused of harassment from some blue-haired weirdo on a video call with nearly a hundred people at work. Like you, this was a person I had zero interaction with prior to the call. I considered getting a lawyer involved because I feared this could blow up, but was talked out of it by my boss, who asked me to apologize and "let's leave it at that".
  • sgt 4y ago
    Didn't the 100 people on the call see that it wasn't harassment? What could possibly have happened to make the weirdo think you were harassing him?
    • tablespoon 4y ago
      > Didn't the 100 people on the call see that it wasn't harassment? What could possibly have happened to make the weirdo think you were harassing him? Some might have, but deciding to jump in to defend the accused would result in a decent chance of the defender getting targeted themselves, in some fashion.
    • Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
      Simple - kudos from a VP on a project my team had been working on.
  • fidgewidge 4y ago
    So you apologized to someone you had no interactions with for harassing them, even though the claim was false?
    • Simon_O_Rourke 4y ago
      No, I didn't communicate with them ever again - but my boss wanted me to apologize to "help clear the air". My boss was worried about their position, and went with the best option to help their own career if things blew up.
  • deleted 4y ago
• ranting-moth 4y ago
  False allegations should carry the same penalty as the crime being alleged.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • nvgeele 4y ago
    No they shouldn't, because such laws will just open the door to even more abuse. Imagine you are raped by someone. You go to the police to report the crime, but unfortunately, they deny, and you can't provide any real evidence. They can now countersue because you've made a "false allegation" which ruined their life.
    • Thiez 4y ago
      Presumably for a "false accusation" conviction one would have to prove that (1) the accusations are false, and (2) the accuser was aware that the accusations were false. Merely failing to prove accusations (such as when there is insufficient evidence) would be insufficient for a false accusation conviction, as neither of these requirements are satisfied.
      • WirelessGigabit 4y ago
        Isn't this already covered under libel?
    • tablespoon 4y ago
      You're not talked about a false allegation, you're talking about an unproved allegation. Those are very different things. It's a spectrum, and we're only talking about one of the extremes: <---- false allegation beyond a reasonable doubt ---- | ---- false allegation ---- ||| ---- true allegation ---- | ---- true allegation beyond a reasonable doubt ---->
    • Dma54rhs 4y ago
      Falsifying a crime and not having enough evidence are very different things. It takes a lot of work or luck to prove that intent.
• dannyr 4y ago
  Isn't every lawsuit an unproven claim? Are you proposing that the media should stop covering lawsuits?
  • msm_ 4y ago
    Shouldn't people names be anonymised in this case? At least in my country it's the law. Often it's just a theater since either everyone knows the alleged perpetrator, or tabloids do sketchy stuff like "Jane D., daughter of a famous actor John Doe").
• samanator 4y ago
  It's sad to me that the most upvoted comment in response to a sexual harassment is about false harassment claims. Imagine the roles were reversed and it were a woman being harassed. What would the response to this comment be?
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    A thousand white knights riding to her rescue, trampling due process?
  • LightHugger 4y ago
    The woman in the article made allegedly false "microaggression" claims against the man.
  • throwawaycopter 4y ago
    Probably even more upvoted? That's the pattern I normally see online, people tend to be sympathetic to victims.
• moss2 4y ago
  Rick & Morty creator Justin Roiland was charged last week with domestic violence, and Adult Swim has already cut all ties with him. Maybe he's a criminal asshole who deserves jail, or maybe he's innocent and a fabrication has ruined his career.
  • CyberDildonics 4y ago
    He apparently has a long history including explicit texts with minors. He wasn't allowed to be around anyone in the production for years and was just recording lines in his own basement. The real scandal there should be that the studio kept everything quiet and only cut him loose when the evidence they already knew about became public.
    • depressedpanda 4y ago
      Even if what you say is true, I still prefer to live in society where innocent until proven guilty actually means something.
      • CyberDildonics 4y ago
        He is not locked up and won't be unless he loses in court.
• Operative0198 4y ago
  Since you didn't mention what happened to the accuser after making the false allegation, I'm going to assume the company just wrote off the incident as a simple misunderstanding.
• throwaway5674 4y ago
  A throwaway account... I am a male who was sexually assaulted by another male. Strictly speaking I was raped, but I prefer not to use that term because of the emotive nature of it. There is not much you've said I disagree with, but I do want to show that this goes both ways. I have never made a public accusation about the individual involved in my case because I do not have irrefutable evidence that it wasn't consentual. If I was in the jury of his court case I would find him innocent, so how could I reasonably go accuse him of anything? Really I think we need to have two serious conversations as a society:- * Individuals should not be able to weaponise sexual assult/harassment claims in public to the extent they do now. If anything, stories like yours make it even more difficult for legitimate victims to tell their story because the idea of destroying the life based off an accusation I cannot prove is really frightening to me. I would like someone to sit him down, privately, and educate him on consent (leading onto my next point) and to never ever do that to another individual again. That isn't an option though, it is a life destroying public circus or nothing. * Consent, consent, consent. From as early an age we're willing to give children sex education, we should teach them about consent. Certainly in my time at school I was not once taught the legal definitions or importance of it. Edit: Minor typos
  • GauntletWizard 4y ago
    Teaching "Consent" doesn't work. The monsters who commit sexual assault don't believe in, and in fact cannot comprehend consent. They view it as a checkbox they have to check, a speedbump that once they're over they can ignore. They absolutely love consent education, because they can claim they had consent, and make it a public circus of litigating he-said-she-said. I'm not going to use a throwaway - I am a male who was sexually assaulted by another male. It's happened to me more than once, in very different ways, and quite frankly for all that it's scarred me I consider it good experience that taught me a lot.
    • throwaway5674 4y ago
      I know platitudes do not help, but I am deeply sorry you had to go through this. I wish our stories were less common than they are. No one should have to go through that as a 'learning experience', but yes I feel the same way. Clearly the only way to really test improved teaching on consent would be to change the education system and then wait 10-20 years to measure the impact once those children become sexually active adults. I don't think such a dataset is a reasonable request unfortunately. It's interesting your phrasing of referring to people who commit sexual assault as 'monsters'. I do not think of my perpetrator as a monster, I do not believe him to be evil beyond redemption. Sure, there are some mentally ill individuals who do sexual crimes so heinous it is hard to imagine any road to recovery, but I don't believe my experience lies in that category. I personally feel a series of events in his life drove him to make that decision that day, and it is possible as a society to course correct future generations not to make that same decision. I have to believe that. Do I have any concrete evidence beyond faith? No. Maybe all rapists are monsters born that way, but that is such a frightening concept I just can't accept that that is true.
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• hdjjhhvvhga 4y ago
  > I'm still a bit jaded that there are absolutely zero repercussions of making false claims. Well, you should be. The reputation of the other party should be completely destroyed. How can you attempt to break someone's life and just get away with that as if nothing happened?
• fennecfoxy 4y ago
  Ha! But if the victim had been a woman, generally your response would've been more outrage than victim blaming like it is, now. If we're going to tell male victims that we don't believe them & that they have to prove it we can do the same for female victims; at the moment for female victims, it is treated very seriously from the outset. However, I almost didn't bother commenting because this distinction between male and female victims will never end, it'll never change and I just have to live knowing that nobody actually really gives a shit about what happens to me; even sitting outside the heterosexual bubble, y'all still reach in with your traditional gender roles BS "men r strong & always do bad things", "women r weak and r always good angels".
• cloudier 4y ago
  The quote from the spokesperson at the very end really makes me think that this situation might stranger than it seems: In a statement to The Post, a spokesman for Miller denied the accusations against his client. “This lawsuit is a fictional account of events filled with numerous falsehoods, fabricated by a disgruntled ex-employee, who was senior to Ms. Miller at Google,” the spokesman said. “Ms. Miller never made any ‘advance’ toward Mr. Olohan, which witnesses can readily corroborate.”