Breaking the Silence

@ubercrumpet said in #587:
> This thread seems to be your timely reminder there are some seriously unenlightened corners of this world who nonetheless have thriving chess communities.

The more frustrating part for me is that this thread is a timely reminder that there are some seriously unenlightened individuals in some seriously enlightened corners of this world, and nonetheless, they have thriving chess communities.

@Pashut

See, lack of additional witnesses is inherently part of predatory behavior, esp sucessfully executed, the lack of other witnesses.

Even if something is caught on camera, such predators - esp intelligent ones, tend to be skilled at explaining it away. Even if it were obviously rape (which for such to be recorded is extremely unlikely) they could just say, "she (or maybe he) earlier asked me to act out a fantasy w/ them and I was reluctant in case something like this happened but they insisted so this really isn't fair to me..."

From what I understood of the article, the question here isn't who's lying or telling the truth. (And apparently skilled investigators do have ways of figuring these things out). But rather the organizations' handling of the accusations; the length of time they took to look into it, and then once they decided there was something to it, apparently not taking meaningful action. This sends a dangerous message to both potential predators and potential victims.

Furthermore, perpetrators of predatory behavior (in the US) know the likelihood of being reported is relatively low (less than 20%), something like less than 6% of those reports are taken seriously, and only a fraction of one percent of those cases apparently face actual consequences and then it seems, often the consequences are relatively minor.

Meanwhile, victims of sexual assault face a lifetime of serious physical and mental health issues and are estimated to accrue $250,000 in lost wages, also over the course of their lives.

@somethingpretentious said in #584:
> No it isn't. There's multiple corroborated sources. You know... like they have in court too.

> No, it ought to be made by people who have reviewed the evidence. If someone wants to go to the police as well, that's fine. But it's not easy to do so and in many cases reporters are further traumatised by the result.

I see that you're passionate, but that isn't a substitute for wisdom and knowledge. I'd love to see the 'evidence' that people have reviewed. Evidence and allegations are not the same thing. Hearing that one person accused another of an act does not constitute a shred of evidence. The evidence is what corroborates the allegation.

> Look at this below and tell me that the criminal justice system is adequate. Even if your abuser does not face consequences in the legal system, is it too much to ask that you don't have to see them at every chess event? If you invited someone into your home and they slapped you, are you really telling me you'd go to the police and not stop inviting them to your home until the court case completed?
>
> Based on correlating multiple data sources, RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) estimates[45] that for every 1,000 rapes, 384 are reported to police, 57 result in an arrest, 11 are referred for prosecution, 7 result in a felony conviction, and 6 result in incarceration.
> Source: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_the_United_States

The fact that this is a sensitive and difficult topic doesn't warrant a complete decline into vigilante justice at the hands of a mob. I know people who have been falsely accused and needed the criminal justice system to exonerate them. The mob doesn't do that. The mob takes the sensational story and makes up its mind based on its general feeling about the allegations.

@sgtlaugh said in #611:
> From this paper, we can see that the false allegation rates for sexual assault are estimated to be from 2 to 10 percent - pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21164210/. You can cross-check other research works done on this topic, usually, it is estimated between 4 to 10 percent.
Define a false allegation first. If case wasn't reported to police at all or was dropped due lack of evidence, does it constitutes a false allegation? Or it constitutes a true allegation? How can you know in such cases. That's why it's impossible to quantify actual rate of false accusations.

Truth is that people lie. That's why we have evidence-based justice system and such ethical principle like "innocent until proven guilty".

Thought Experiment: (context is still chess events, tournaments, etc.)

What if someone was going around beating up or maybe just breaking the fingers of players' dominant hands every so often?
Would we assume these so-called victims just did it to themselves? For attention? To ruin someone's reputation?

And what if when reported, someone else hears about this and says, "Wow, that person did the same thing to me a couple years ago, but I was just too embarrassed to say anything and besides there were no witnesses"?
Would we just assume this other person is making it up?

What if someone was going around stealing wallets on occasion but careful to make sure there was no one else around and there were no good camera angles?
Would we then appoint the accused as a treasurer? Over other qualified candidates not accused? Over candidates with proven trustworthiness?

What if someone were going around letting air out of tires?
Would this be acceptable? It happened in the parking lot and not inside the event itself, after all?

What if someone were telling minors in private that they want to do horrible things to their pets?
Would this be okay because there is no real harm done? Would we discourage minors from telling anyone because it is just so weird and uncomfortable anyway?

After all, nobody wants to believe talented and accomplished people who have achieved things we could only dream of aspiring to would be capable of such misconduct or monstrosities, right?

Thank you for your time.

It was already noisy

Everytime I read „innocent until proven guilty“ in this particular context the misogyny counter will rise. The perpetrator-victim reversal speaks volumes about some users here.

The silence had to be broken because of such patterns.

is lichess not being a bit hasty here considering that its basing all its actions on allegations. US chess and Stlcc are not qualified to investigate these matters. they face a great danger of being sued for defamation especially if they have to refer to past instances which they have no certainty that indeed the alleged cases of abuse occured. lichess does confirm that US chess has improved, is that not enough? how can US chess deal with past cases that were not reported to the rightful authorities to deal with such matters like the courts and police.

Thank you, Lichess. This kind of advocacy and reporting is a big reason why I'm proud to be a Lichess patron.

@sgtlaugh said in #611:
> Even if we take the higher number here, the probability that all the women are making false allegations would be 0.1^6, which is 1 in a million. Still, think this is a witch hunt?

I agree with the overall point that more allegations increase the odds. But from a statistical point of view the calculation that you're using requires events to be independent.

@friggidyfrank said in #615:
> I see that you're passionate, but that isn't a substitute for wisdom and knowledge. I'd love to see the 'evidence' that people have reviewed. Evidence and allegations are not the same thing. Hearing that one person accused another of an act does not constitute a shred of evidence. The evidence is what corroborates the allegation.

Please don't patronise me, or indeed insult me for lacking wisdom and knowledge. Witness testimony (even of the accuser) is frequently used as evidence.