Comment on The forbidden topics of hacker communities
hassanmckusick@lemmy.discothe.quest 8 months agoor if we do take action (the minimum action you seem to be advocating for is ostracism) against the accused
Either way someone’s getting ostracized. People who don’t ostracize the accused are going to ostracize the accuser.
jasory@programming.dev 8 months ago
“Ostracizing” the accuser is generally voluntary. There is a difference between “I’m not comfortable working with this person” and leaving, and everyone coming to you and saying “Get out”.
The latter is fairly rare to happen to accusers, but it’s expected for the accused.
hassanmckusick@lemmy.discothe.quest 8 months ago
That’s not true. Kids have been disowned by their families for reporting SA. Ostracization is a real possibility for victims and it’s a very large part of causes rapes to go unreported. Nobody wants to be friends with the person who makes false allegations.
Not to mention you’re leaving out all the people who will see someone actually convicted and decide not to ostracize the guilty person because “akchually he’s a good guy”.
The reality is that it is insanely hard to fence-sit on I don’t believe the accusation but I don’t think the accuser is lying either.
jasory@programming.dev 8 months ago
But we are talking about a professional community, most people in this community that the post is about aren’t friends and likely don’t interact with each other outside of the work they do.
hassanmckusick@lemmy.discothe.quest 8 months ago
This is confusing. Maybe OP has a point that we should just be forthright about whats going on so people can make informed decisions.
My initial reaction is that you shouldn’t be sticking your neck out for people you only know in a professional sense.
My second reaction is that as a community if you receive reports of sexual assault and do not act on them in some way you are sending a message that your community is not a safe space for people who have been sexually assaulted.
And I’m still hung up on how you are able to ostracize the accused and not the accuser? Is the accusation coming from outside the community?