[MispelledToyota]

You can tell someone what good criteria are for wines, why not forming opinions? They're not obligated to listen to you, but I don't get saying that you can't advise.

Beyond that though, when our opinions have consequences, we have an obligation to form them carefully when they affect others. Not being able to force someone to behave well doesn't mean there aren't reasonable criteria available for them.

[cortesoft]

What consequence does my choosing to believe either side in this story have?

Now, if I (or someone else) harass the guy over the accusation, then that is a problem (and there should be consequences), but belief is personal.

[mkishi]

What do you call a mob of people piling on someone and causing them to lose friends, opportunities and a healthy state-of-mind? A belief system?

You're free to believe whatever you want, but if you are wrong and they didn't do it, someone was just publicly executed for the wrong reasons.

You're also free to not care about any of that, but some people want to be cautious not to pile on without evidence.

Are you really arguing it's fine if I accused you of something and convinced everyone of that, without ever providing any evidence? And when you said "no, I didn't do that, here's some evidence," people should shrug it off because why does if matter what side they believe? After all, they are free to judge you based on anything they want, as long as they're not threatening your life or firing you, right?

No one was arguing you can't judge people based on any arbitrary thing you can come up with. It becomes an issue when you use that belief to actively destroy their life, possibly for no reason at all.

[mcguire]

"...publicly executed..."?

[mkishi]

While I did not mean that and just failed at English, one can easily find documented instances of actual murders and lynch mobs directly caused by lies being spread on social media, so, yes?

[MispelledToyota]

The question was about how someone should form their opinions, and whether we can tell others how they ought to do that. Lots of our opinions do affect others (e.g., if they should be hired, if one should help them, how we treat their reputations), so it's appropriate to point out what good and bad criteria are.

If an opinion being held doesn't have any practical ramifications for others, it's not really a big deal to have opinions formed on a questionable basis, except that good judgment tends to be a habitual process, so doing it with bad criteria with low stakes could affect how we form them when the stakes are higher.