Quote:
Originally Posted by Locke
That being said though, its instances where someone is accused of a very serious crime and by all indications never settled, admitted guilt or was proven to have committed any offence at all, there should be consideration of consequences for the accuser for having made false claims that generated considerable loss and damage to the accused.
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On a micro-level I agree, but on a macro-level that's how you prevent people from reporting their assaults. If it's your word against a powerful person's word, and he can afford the best lawyers in the world and you can't pay your student loan debts, you'd never want to report a sexual assault because it would bankrupt you in addition to ruining your reputation and forcing you to confront your attacker. There's enough evidence that we should be doing everything possible to make assault victims come forwards given the amount of rapes that go unreported, not hinder them.
Of course there is recourse already with defamation civil suits and the like, and false accusers can face criminal charges anyways.
What we should do is better protect the accused. Perhaps publication ban on names until found guilty. That's still not perfect because then you would people like Anthony Rapp unable to come forward to tell his story about Spacey.