[throwaway12395]

The "innocent conversation" is the prior coworker of mine who was reprimanded by HR and put on a PIP for "bullying" a coworker when he tried to hold her accountable for work she was supposed to deliver under his lead.

I was present, as were a handful of other women. None of us were ever followed up with to ask if this was a legitimate accusation. The accuser was given a red carpet to a choice team. The accusee was given additional workload to carry and taken out of a position of authority and placed in a punitive program.

I have seen this happen twice in the last 3 years.

Do not take this as defense of the examples you mention, but as a warning against unintended consequences that simply don't ever show up in the press because they aren't highly visible and won't draw clicks, especially if they go against the status quo. If you need further evidence, look at the speed to which a concrete, evidence backed accusation with respect to google's hiring practices got flagged off the front page, whereas this thread is still much higher ranked after much longer time and fewer votes.