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Comment by api | Hacker News Reader

I don't like this court-of-public-opinion stuff much either and the abuse potential is real. At the same time: what else are people going to do? There seems to be no other recourse.

Most people let bullies get away with it because even stepping in as a third party means standing up to a bully. It can be scary, but even if there's no real risk it's still a fucking pain in the ass. Who wants to get into a mud slinging competition with a predator? Or get a harassment lawsuit? If someone is willing to harass other people this way, they will certainly harass you this way.

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Contact law enforcement.

You mean the law enforcement in a foreign country that you are visiting for only a few days? The one that would require you to spend untold thousands of dollars, that you don't have, on flights if you had to testify in a court in a language that you do not fluently speak?

What do you do if you're mugged in a foreign country?

Generally count yourself lucky to be alive and then fly home in a few days.

So you suggest the victims should just shrug it off.

The chances of the police and the court system doing something are not many and it will cost you.

I tried fighting injustices in court, it often doesn't work and you just end up wasting money.

I would have rather spent the money on a guy with a wrench.

I mean they could post on social media about their account and see if the community acts.

Law enforcement will tell you to pound sand. Much (not all) of this kind of abuse isn't illegal, and DAs rarely want to prosecute the parts that are. It ruins their district's crime stats, it's difficult to prosecute, and many of them just don't care.

Not to mention that this took place while traveling to a foreign country.

Edit: I'm assuming that folks disagreeing with this post have had nothing but success with reporting sexual harassment and assault to police departments, foreign and domestic... Because the alternative assumption is a lot less charitable.

Yes, I'm sure they'll treat it with the seriousness that they treat the decades-long ignored pile of rape kits.

This seems international though, this is not simple. As a victim doubly so, since you also have to combat your damaged pyche. In the end there needs to be an investigation, but sadly some uproar is needed for something to happen in cases like these.

This is generally a good idea and the right thing to do, but cancel culture still exists for some reason. Probably it's because people do not trust conventional justice and do not believe in law enforcement?

Publicly taking high moral ground when it costs you nothing is insanely gratifying and as old as the humanity itself.

In the legitimate "cancel culture" cases you generally find that all other avenues have been tried multiple times, often for years.

In the original #metoo Hollywood case it's that the whole culture was/is rotten and has been for decades. There's no other recourse because the culture normalizes "casting couch" type stuff. That's where the term comes from after all.

Law enforcement is not perfect and these crimes are often hard to prove in isolation. So worst case you go to law enforcement, they talk to the perpetrator but do nothing, and then the perpetrator mostly destroys your future career. A lot of downside and risk for the victim. You can look at the film industry for numerous famous examples of victims being blacklisted in retaliation.

That’s exactly my point. The law enforcement is not adequate to the needs of society and cannot offer efficient protection for victims. Cancel culture can be ugly, but for many it’s the only way to get justice, and it is a sign that some reform is needed.

A relative ran an online community. It was small, but not tiny

There was some cyber-bullying (for lack of a better word) going on. My relative called law-enforcement, then was referred to the FBI. A case was filed and was told they would circle back on it to collect details. They never called back. My relative was never able to make contact with them about it again.

Completely ignored. I can't remember the details, but it wasn't just a "you're fat and ugly" type of bullying. But it was a real safety issue for a member of the community. Law enforcement completely failed in this case.

Now what?

I despise the "public court". The internet and viral online comments deciding who's innocent and who's guilty. (the man during the US capitol riots who lost his job because he was seen in a photo holding a black woman. Turns out, he was actually saving her life! But the "public court" announced him as guilty and they went after him, contacting his employer, people saying awful things about him online. https://kfor.com/news/washington-dc-bureau/white-man-seen-in... )

But on the flip side... what do you do when law enforcement completely fails?

Public law enforcement doesn't have any incentive doing anything.

We need private police and a new legal system

Private police??? Like, uber but for swatting? No thank you

The difference between posts like the one Yifan made about the sexual assault/rape and your news article you linked is that in one, neither person talked about what happened, and in the other, one of them is being _extremely_ clear and explicit about what happened. Don't pretend that Yifan's article is anything like that photo of the man grabbing the woman.

I guess you’re responding to something I didn’t intend to convey because I’m a little confused to find this comment.

To be clear: what I was responding to the comment that said only “contact law enforcement”. I was merely pointing out that “contact[ing] law encoforcement” is not a silver bullet.

But I was also mourning that the alternative (the court of public opinions? Is that the right phrase?) also has its problems. Sometimes it feels like we have no options.

I was not commenting on the OP’s experience.

I think using the example that you did to showcase the failings of a public court wasn't a fair comparison for the reason I said.

My sister has been raped. The officers laughed. My wife has been harassed. The officers wrote some things down on forms and did nothing.

It achieves little.

I don't blame the people who go public - I just wish that the rest of us would be a bit more hesitant to immediately signal boost them. (For example, I might avoid upvoting a story like this to the top of a tech news aggregation platform when the accused hasn't had time to respond.)

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