Zak Smith is suing his accusers

[MGibster]

That’s either cowardice or a guilty conscience.

There are plenty of people who have fears that aren't grounded in reality. Recent polls show that 60% of male managers don't want to mentor female employees for fear of accusations of harassment. This is bad for women and this is bad for companies. I could just throw up my hands and tell those male managers they don't have to worry unless they're a bunch of cowards or have a guilty conscience but you know what's going to happen? Nothing. They'll keep on avoiding mentoring women and those women will move on to other companies where they feel like they have a chance for advancement. That kind of talk just isn't productive.

 

[pemerton]

It is my understanding that this lawsuit was filed in Canada, not the United States. Typical defamation forum shopping. I do not know enough about Canadian law to opine on the issue much, other than to say that Canadian law is much more plaintiff-friendly in defamation cases

There have been iterations of defamation law in Australia in which truth has not been a full defence - eg if the plaintiff can nevertheless establish a lack of good faith, or malice, on the part of the defendant. (I'm not defamation expert and this is mean to be a general description rather than technical account.)

Perhaps Canada is similar?

the US follows the American rule- that means that, absent a contract or statutory provision, each side pays their own attorney's fees. So if there is a power or wealth imbalance between parties, one party can simply hammer the other side - even if they lose, it might be worth it to them to inflict pain. After all, if both sides have to pay, say, 100k in attorney's fees, and one side has a billion dollars, and the other side makes 50k a year ....

So the gist of it is that powerful people can still use defamation law to harass less powerful people. They go in knowing that even if they lose, they win.

This sort of thing also happens in jurisdictions where the loser of litigation can have costs awarded against them.

 

[Umbran]

That’s either cowardice or a guilty conscience.

Mod Note:

This isn't acceptable. If you wish to take part in this discussion, you need to treat others WITH RESPECT.

This rather flagrantly does not.. So, you will be leaving the thread.

Anyone else feel their insults and accusations are worth it?

 

[pemerton]

I'll drink to that and take it one step further, I'm glad that someone (Smith) is finally doing taking a stand against it. I'm sick of the current trend of every accusation everywhere automatically being assumed true by the public, sight unseen.

I don't get this at all.

He's not "taking a stand" against anything, and certainly not against "every accusation everywhere automatically being assumed true by the public". He's suing those who have accused him. Assuming the matter gets to court, each will present their case and a decision will be reached. Hopefully that decision will track the truth, thought in court processes there's never any absolute guarantee of that.

As I think others have pointed out, by suing them he seems to be implying that they are lying (given the nature of the accusations made against him, it's not easy to see how they could be innocent errors altough given the strangeness of the world I guess that's a possibility). That could be construed as an allegation or accusation. Are you assuming it to be true, sight unseen?

 

[Bohandas]

McCarthyism (and thus The Crucible) were about persecuting people for political beliefs and associations in a supposedly free society, not for sexual assault, harassment, and abuse.

Yes because generalizing from McCarthyism to this would be as nonsensical as trying to generalize from the Salem witch trials to McCarthyism

Furthermore, I also mentioned the 1987 McMartin preschool trial in that post, which WAS in part about sexual abuse (in addition to being about witchcraft) and which involved dozens of accusers and accusations all of which turned out to be completely unfounded.

EDIT:
McMartin preschool trial - Wikipedia
EDIT:
When you believe accusations just because they're about sexual abuse then you get unmitigated travesties like the Daycare sex abuse hysteria of the 1980's

Day-care sex-abuse hysteria - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[pemerton]

I don’t care about just don’t someone not convicted of anything. This changes everything if he has been arrested, given due process, and convicted by a jury.

If they were a stranger I would not jump to a conclusion. If they were a friend or family member I would urge them to Press charges and get a restraining order.

Youre position here is incoherent.

A matter will only go to court if a prosecutor decides to bring a case. This requires the prosecutor to form an opinion about the truth of an allegation prior to any determination by way of a criminal trial.

Normally a prosecutor will be able to bring a case if the police investigate the matter and collect evidence about it. This requires the police to form an opion about the truth of an allegation prior to any determination by way of a criminal trial.

The function of a criminal trial is to make a ceratin sort of official determination about a certain sort of question (ie criminal guilt and resultant liability to punishment). It's not the only official fact-finding institution in most systems of government, and it's certainy not the only way that officials, let alone ordinary people, decide whether or not certain allegations are true.

Getting a restraining order (at least in jurisdictions I'm familiar with) does not require proving allegations to the criminal standard of proof. If you don't accept that sort of thing, why would you hypocritcally advise someone to get a restraining order?

And why does someone being a friend or relative of yours make you treat them as a reliable source when you wouldn't treat others as such? Friendship is important in many ways, but it's not normally a good way of measuring what is true or false in human affairs.

 

[Umbran]

It also reminds me of McCarthyism and of the 1980s/1990's satanic panic witch trials (the McMartin case the Wee Care case, etc)

You reaize the basic difference, of course?

In the McCarthy Era, and during the Satanic panic, nobody had actually done anything wrong. There were no Communist agents. There were no Satan worshipers.

Here and now, women get sexually harassed and assaulted all the time. All. The. Time. Roughly one in six women will be experience at least attempted rape in their lifetime.

So, the difference is that one was a fake problem, but this one is real.

The increased visibility on the problem has, in the past couple of decades, thankfully had a significant impact - sexual violence is down. But it is not gone.

 

[pemerton]

I choose to show compassion for the falsely accused.

Innocent until proven guilty. I will not treat this man unkindly or smear this man until he is convicted. It is the same courtesy I hope someone would show me if I was accused.

If someone is accused, and then convicted, it is likely (not certain, given that trials derail from time to time) that s/he was guilty of the conduct of which s/he was accused. Which is to say that s/he was not falsely accused.

If "innocent until proven guilty" meant what you seem to think it means, then all accusations would be false. Which is absurd.

Also, at this very moment there are many many people in prisons on remand, who have never been convicted of any crime and in some cases have never been charged but are being held while the authorities decide whether or not to charge them. I would take your concerns about adverse consquences flowing from accusations more seriously if you were leading a movement for reform of overly-strict bal laws rather than focusing your sympathy on someone who has not lost any liberty and against whom the accusations seem, on the basis of publicly available information, to be well-founded.

 

[pemerton]

So people are never falsely accused. If one of accused it must be true. Is that what you are saying?

Like I said if it was someone I know. But these aren’t people I know. I’m not going to assume he is guilty or treat him like he is guilty. And I hope people do the same for me. People lie. People jump in a band wagon, for various reasons. If they got evidence and convict him I would understand. I hope to god nothing like that ever happens to me.

You seem to be implying, here, that ZakS has been falsely accused. How do you know that? What is your evidence that the accusations are false? (Besides ZakS's denials, which are not zero evidence but aren't perhaps terribly strong evidence.)

 

[Bohandas]

You reaize the basic difference, of course?

In the McCarthy Era, and during the Satanic panic, nobody had actually done anything wrong. There were no Communist agents. There were no Satan worshipers.

You didn't have to be a russian agent to get blacklisted, you just had to be a communist sympathizer or a member of the CPUSA, and such people did indeed exist, even though they were decidedly in the minority of people harmed by McCarthyist practices.