[jeffdavis]

Courts do have stricter standards for admission of evidence and verdicts. But the basic innocent-by-default is a general principle that should apply pretty much everywhere.

And there should be consistency and standards in media reporting of allegations, and for HR decisions.

[geofft]

The thing about innocent-by-default is that false accusations are also a serious crime with serious penalties (for good reason), and if you believe that the accused is affirmatively innocent, you have to believe that the accused is guilty.

The reason that courts, specifically, do not have this paradox is that "innocent" simply means "we do not have the evidence to justify using the extraordinary punishment powers reserved to the government alone against this person". Yes, there's such a thing as getting a court to declare you affirmatively innocent, but usually they say "not guilty," which is an important philosophical distinction. So a court can very well decide that a person has not been proven guilty of their crime, and that their accuser has not been proven guilty of malice, either.

But humans don't work like that. When we think "innocent," we don't think "I have insufficient data," we think "they didn't do it". It is arguably a flaw in human thinking, but it's a flaw we have to live with and work with. And a world in which all who accuse people of sexual harassment are effectively guilty-until-proven-innocent in the court of public opinion isn't a great world, either.

[AnthonyMouse]

> But humans don't work like that.

Sure they do. There are three options, just like there are in court. We punish the accused, or we punish the accuser for lying, or we don't punish either of them.

Not punishing anyone is what we do when we don't have convincing evidence one way or the other. That's just consistency -- you don't punish the accused without proof just like you don't punish the accuser without proof.

When there is no way to know the truth, it's completely valid to do nothing.

[dragonwriter]

> The thing about innocent-by-default is that false accusations are also a serious crime with serious penalties (for good reason), and if you believe that the accused is affirmatively innocent, you have to believe that the accused is guilty.

That's usually not strictly true; knowing false accusations are a crime, but it's usually possible for the accuser's statement not to be a knowing falsehood while the accused is not factually guilty.

[friendzis]

> But humans don't work like that. When we think "innocent," we don't think "I have insufficient data," we think "they didn't do it". It is arguably a flaw in human thinking, but it's a flaw we have to live with and work with.

This interestingly maps to computer science. When talking about accusations for some reason we expect outcome to be binary, while the outcome is ternary. Binary logic is difficult, ternary logic is even more so.

Given ternary input state of accuser (false accusation, real accusation, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ accusation) and ternary input of state of accused (guilty, not guilty, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯), I try to think of logical (relational?) operator/function which combines these inputs and yields ternary verdict. Given that output should be undefined unless both states are known, there should be AND between the states. Maybe something like Verdict = Accuser AND NOT Accused which would yield a verdict only if both accusation and guilt can be proven. But we still have a can of worms unopened regarding evidence and what evidence actually proves, because more likely than not evidence will prove or rule out possibility that something has happened

[solidsnack9000]

...if you believe that the accused is affirmatively innocent, you have to believe that the accused is guilty.

This is not strictly or even practically true, but you acknowledge that later. When the defendant prevails in a court case, we don’t turn around and lock up the plaintiff.

You go on to say:

...a world in which all who accuse people of sexual harassment are effectively guilty-until-proven-innocent in the court of public opinion isn’t a great world, either.

If you replace “sexual harassment” with any other accusation, do you still feel the same way? With regards to the flaw in human thinking you mention — do we have to work with it for all kinds of accusations, or is it specifically a problem for sexual harassment?

[geofft]

> If you replace “sexual harassment” with any other accusation, do you still feel the same way?

Yes, I do.

The reason I mention sexual harassment is that a lot of people are making accusations of sexual harassment. To believe that the accused are all innocent until I hear evidence otherwise until proven (i.e., to treat the accusations themselves and their consistency as having no information value) is to believe that all the accusers are lying. Very few people are making accusations of, say, piracy on the high seas, so I don't feel like I'm really believing that anyone is lying by holding the belief that piracy on the high seas is rare or that the average person is not guilty of piracy on the high seas.

There are a couple of other accusations I hear regularly. Some of them are things like "Police can murder citizens with impunity" and "The NSA is spying on us." I do think that those accusations should be heard and understood, and not dismissed in the court of public opinion on the grounds that the police and the NSA are innocent until proven guilty.

There are other accusations like "A pizza shop in DC is running a child-trafficking ring under its basement" or "Antifa poured concrete on Amtrak rails, causing the derailment earlier this week." For those I don't believe in holding the accusers guilty until proven innocent, either; a small amount of research can demonstrate to public opinion that the accusations are false on the merits and the accusers are guilty because of specific reasons. (Or, perhaps, the court of opinion can find that the accusers are generally people who make up stories, which still avoids applying a standard of guilty until proven innocent to similar accusations in general.)

[solidsnack9000]

...is to believe that all the accusers are lying.

For those I don't believe in holding the accusers guilty until proven innocent...

You've used this kind of phrasing a few times, but strictly speaking, not believing the accuser is not the same as accusing them of any crime -- being wrong is a not a crime.

It seems to me that you are saying, that practically speaking we either hold the accused guilty-until-proven-innocent, or we hold the accusers guilty-until-proven-innocent -- we have have to make a choice, in the absence of proof. Is my understanding correct?

[ggg9990]

False accusation is a particular problem for sex crimes because the legality of the act depends on consent.

You can't explain away a dead body saying "he asked me to murder him." But you can explain away evidence of sexual intercourse by saying "it was consensual."

[dragonwriter]

> False accusation is a particular problem for sex crimes because the legality of the act depends on consent.

That's true of criminal assaults in general; striking someone with their consent is usually not a crime.

> You can't explain away a dead body saying "he asked me to murder him."

You can in jurisdictions where assisted suicide is legal. And even where it's not, a combination of no intent to kill plus consent can render an act that otherwise would be murder (even with either of those factors alone) into a non-criminal.

Sexual assault isn't different because consent matters, it differs because juries are more sympathetic to the accused (at least, accused from certain backgrounds) when it comes to determining whether there is sufficient grounds to believe consent may have been present or to dismiss such a belief.

[solidsnack9000]

In the absence of evidence that indicates non-consent — signs of a struggle, injuries, presence of date rape drugs — evidence of sexual intercourse doesn’t need to be explained. Actually, even in the presence of clear evidence of non-consent, evidence of sexual intercourse doesn’t need to be explained — it’s the evidence that creates the impression of an assault that needs to be explained.

It seems wrong to take evidence of sexual intercourse alone, and a statement by a plaintiff claiming that the sexual intercourse was non-consensual, as a basis for a conviction. That amounts to just deciding to believe one side and not the other. If that what’s happening, why look for any evidence at all?

[leereeves]

> false accusations are also a serious crime with serious penalties

False accusations of sexual assault or harassment rarely result in any penalties at all (even when proven false by strong evidence), and there's immense resistance to imposing such penalties for fear of discouraging legitimate accusations.

[greglindahl]

So, for example, if a business in my neighborhood has a sign that says "No hippies, Jews, or N?????s", I should continue to shop there until they get convicted by a court?

[solidsnack9000]

If you have concrete evidence, that’s enough.

What if the situation was, that someone told you they saw this sign one time? Would that be enough not to shop there?

[jeffdavis]

It's probably worth asking the owner whether it's true, and if so, let them know that's why you don't want to shop there any more.

Just trusting an allegation alone and walking away silently seems both less fair and less effective.

Also, sometimes you find out more to the story. Maybe the owner is very old, and it happened a long time ago, and he's since changed his attitude dramatically. Maybe you forgive him or maybe not, but then you at least put it in perspective.

In any case, certainly don't repeat the unsubstantiated allegation to others.

[jeffdavis]

Of course not. You can make your own judgement based on the evidence you have.

I am standing up for the presumption of innocence when the evidence is lacking or in conflict.