As we see in the Weinstein case there are a lot of accusations.  But as we saw in UVA and Mattress girl we see false accusations.

An accusation is - No proof. No investigation. No evidence. No witness. No due process. No official legal case.

Is an accusation Just say it and its true?
Accusation = proof. Trust the accuser only?  It seems like it is sometimes.  People are losing jobs over accusations.

Have you ever been falsely accused of something and suffered from it?  Should accusers have any liability to their accusations?  As in, should false accusers be punished?

False accusers should receive the same punishment that the accused would have received. The problem I see a lot is the accuser remains anonymous, while the accused has their identity all over the news. Since their name is out there in the spotlight their reputation is ruined FOREVER even if they turn out to be innocent. There is no coming back from being accused of rape. For a while it seemed like there was no punishment for throwing a false accusation out there. I get why. If the evidence simply isn't there, but the suspect did actually do the deed... well people are less likely to come forward since it's a big risk. Luckily I've noticed that starting to change. Still it's bullshit you could throw someone's name in the mud with zero consequences.

I was falsely accused at work for something like this from someone that had a reputation of falsely accusing people in the past. Going through the process of proving I did not do anything was insulting and degrading. Innocent until proven guilty, right? I should not have to prove I didn't do something. Those that accuse should bring forth proof that someone did. It was dismissed and I never heard about it again other than a few comments from coworkers asking me if it was true (that I was being accused not if I did it). I wonder if it would have been such a slam dunk if I was the first person they accused.

Right or wrong, I am very skeptical of anyone who accuses another. Especially if there's no police report. Trust, but verify.

accusations might as well mean guilt since the NFL is still punishing our star, Ezekial Elliot, over an accusation which had no evidence. not to mention the accuser was caught telling a friend she made it up to hurt the man...

women like that make me sick.

I cant recall anything serious i've been accused of....well an ex accused me of being a cheater....after i walked in on him cheating on me..

men can be ridiculous

Sometimes, I think of this quote : " Of course it ain't true, but I want to make the son-of-a-bitch deny it. "

Sometimes, whether it's true or not, it automatically casts doubt in people's mind. From experience, if someone has nothing to lose, they'll say anything.

And from The Social Network : " Whatever it is that's gonna trip you up, you've done already. "

I often wonder, " Why now? " - why not 20 years ago when it happened? On in Spacey's case, why not 30 years ago when he was a complete unknown?

As for the accusers.. having spent time working with people services, and being part of investigations. You often hear people make complaints, make accusations that aren't true. Whether it's to cast doubt, or they feel they're the victim, or to build on a narrative that supports their pov, it's usually a combination of many things. The reality is, the accuser has attempted to discredit the reputation of another individual by falsifying a report or complaint.

In short, I've seen people instigate investigations into others by making false accusations, reports, etc and the investigations rightfully so, turns on them.

I can't say I was ever really accused of anything, I mean on some serious level.

I do think once the accusation is out there you can't un-ring that bell. You accuse somebody of rape, guilty or not that is going to stain a reputation. Obviously if the person is guilty than fuck them but if they are innocent, shit like that can really affect the life of the person and the people close to him or her. We had a teacher here that was accused of something inappropriate with a male student a couple years ago, turned out the kid was lying as some of the dates he gave for these alleged trysts couldn't have happened and from what I understand he just broke down and confessed that he made it up and was infatuated with this teacher. He got expelled and I heard he tried to kill himself. With all that said, some of the students still cracked jokes behind her back about it and some think she did it and the kid was just covering for her so she wouldn't get in trouble. I don't think that was the case, this kid seemed pretty troubled from my interaction with him. Still though her reputation took a huge hit. I know she was wanting to make a transition to guidance counselor at the school and the school took that off the table and even though she was nothing to support the evidence against her and she was cleared of any wrong doing, they went with an outside hire. Maybe that would have happened anyways but she explained to me that it was almost a done deal before the allegation came up that she would be filling that spot the next year.

Damn near every woman I've dated has accused me of cheating. Several relationships ended due to it. Thing is, I've NEVER cheated on anyone! Not one time. I've had opportunities that were tempting, but I took the high road. I think its due to the fact that I've always been comfortable having female friends, even in grade school when other boys shunned girls because "they had cooties" or whatever. Best friend all throughout college was a girl and every girl I dated back then accused us of being more than that. I loved her like a little sister. That was all. It gets frustrating consistently being accused of something you've never done.

When I did more intense social work than I do now I once had a woman in a room full of lawyers claim that she didn’t do what she needed to because I looked at her like I wanted to rape her. She was plenty crazy and eventually stormed out of the room. I only saw her once after that because you don’t tempt crazy.

How many accusations does it take before you believe someone is possibly guilty of what they are accused of? Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein level? Kevin Spacey and R Kelly level? Or Bryan Singer and Brett Ratner level?

Nov 6, 2017 16:59:53 GMT theend said:

How many accusations does it take before you believe someone is possibly guilty of what they are accused of? Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein level? Kevin Spacey and R Kelly level? Or Bryan Singer and Brett Ratner level?

The number doesn't really matter. It's how big of a scandal it will cause that matters. 

What baffles me is, a guy like Hugh Hefner who has exploited women and used his position for sex for decades is treated like some sort of God.

There's been allegations of sexual assault, women pressured into taking drugs and engaging in orgies with Hefner - Holly Madison, wrote that Hefner drugged women so they would sleep with him. Do a quick google search, there's mention of rape, mental and physical abuse, attempted murder, drug addiction, attempted suicide and prostitution. 

Any other celebrity, it would be a media circus.

Nov 7, 2017 7:40:06 GMT NATH45 said:

Nov 6, 2017 16:59:53 GMT theend said:

How many accusations does it take before you believe someone is possibly guilty of what they are accused of? Bill Cosby and Harvey Weinstein level? Kevin Spacey and R Kelly level? Or Bryan Singer and Brett Ratner level?

The number doesn't really matter. It's how big of a scandal it will cause that matters. 

What baffles me is, a guy like Hugh Hefner who has exploited women and used his position for sex for decades is treated like some sort of God.

There's been allegations of sexual assault, women pressured into taking drugs and engaging in orgies with Hefner - Holly Madison, wrote that Hefner drugged women so they would sleep with him. Do a quick google search, there's mention of rape, mental and physical abuse, attempted murder, drug addiction, attempted suicide and prostitution. 

Any other celebrity, it would be a media circus.

Hef is interesting.  The accusations on him definitely put him above and beyond the seemingly transparent "casting couch" type of atmosphere you would expect out of him.  My wife is all about all the secrets of the mansion, so I am fairly educated on the other side of Hef.  He is an anomaly.  Somehow being out of the closet and transparent about some of his sexual exploitation was the perfect mask for the more violating things he did.  I can understand but not empathize with the fact that his civil rights and other virtue signaling also was the perfect cover for the violating side.