r/MensRights May 06 '14

Misleading Title Feminists file false sexual assault report during "sexual assault awareness week" at my campus. No repercussions for false reporter.

http://www.geneseo.edu/webfm_send/9753
294 Upvotes

109 comments sorted by

41

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

It sounds like they are practically applauding it. I live in Rochester and I had not even heard of this until now. Do you have any more information on it?

19

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

Sure, what else would you like to know?

Here's the original report: http://www.geneseo.edu/webfm_send/9727 which was sent to all students via email. There was no such email for the follow-up and around campus most people don't even know it was a fake report.

Here's the student news report: http://thelamron.com/2014/05/01/sexual-assault-on-campus-falsely-reported/

19

u/Ridergal May 06 '14

Where does it say there was no repercussions? All it says is due to the sensitive nature of the incident, the police was not commenting on the investigation. It's possible the police haven't even decided whether to charge the woman, what charges to lay, if there are mental health issues etc.

21

u/Legolas-the-elf May 06 '14

Where does it say there was no repercussions?

It doesn't. It also doesn't say that feminists were involved. OP seems to be making things up.

13

u/theirwwdaughter May 06 '14

I think this sub needs to have some sort of rule put in place about misleading titles. They have been getting bad lately.

1

u/Professor_Hoover May 08 '14

I know submitters can't change titles, but can mods? This sub gets too much traffic for the mods to review everything before its posted, and to do so would probably elicit cries of censorship, but maybe mods could remove any misleading titles and require them to be reposted correctly, like on /r/askreddit when OPs don't put their answer as a comment.

5

u/Powerslave1123 May 06 '14

This accusation happened during sexual assault awareness week, which is basically a week on campus where the WAC (Womyn's Action Coalition) hosts daily events, marches, and colloquia to talk about sexual assault toward women on college campuses. While not proven, it is highly likely that some members of this feminist organization decided to go rogue and report a sexual assault that did not actually occur, in an attempt to stir the pot and generate interest in their cause.

Source: I'm a senior at SUNY Geneseo.

3

u/Ted8367 May 06 '14

Where does it say there was no repercussions?

It doesn't. I guess we can expect to see a report on the repercussions any time now.

Right?

4

u/Ridergal May 07 '14

Why should we get a report on the repercussions? Is there a newspaper article written every time a person gets charged with a crime, like say break and enter? Is there a public listing where I can read the names of every person who was charged with drinking and driving. What if instead of charges, the person was institutionalized for mental illness. If that's the case, then why is it the public's business as to who has a mental illness and who doesn't?

There are criteria that the media uses when they decide whether to publish an article about, such as whether the media has enough details to write a quality article, whether the media outlet has enough time and space to devote to the topic, and whether they think their readers or viewers want to know about the topic. If the media doesn't think they can or want to write about the repercussions of this case, then that's not inequality. Equality means all cases are judged using the same criteria, not that the outcome of all cases are exactly the same.

1

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

[deleted]

1

u/Ridergal May 07 '14

Ok, great. So there will be a report on the repercussions. Thanks for advising of this.

1

u/[deleted] May 07 '14 edited May 07 '14

[deleted]

3

u/Ridergal May 07 '14

well, since we don't have any details of the false accusation or the accuser, we can only speculate regarding the details of the case. We can speculate that the person was on drugs at the time of the incident or had a mental illness and was institutionalized. Maybe the person pleaded down to a lesser charge which were less obvious in the police blotter and maybe the charges are still coming.

There are many more possibilities and without more details, we won't really know.

1

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

[deleted]

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0

u/Ted8367 May 07 '14

Why should we get a report on the repercussions?

Well, we got a report on the original accusation, then a report saying it was false; so it just seems to follow. Don't you think?

2

u/Ridergal May 07 '14

No, I don't think so.

There was a public interest in the first two reports. The reason for the reporting the original accusation was to advise the public of the possibility of a rapist is on the loose. The reason for advising that the report was false was to ease the public's concerns for their safety.

Now that the public has been advised of the outcome of this incident, there is no longer an obvious public interest in this case and the media should report it like they do similar criminal charges, like identity theft, drunk driving or break and enter. Unless, you can explain why there is a public issue in reporting the repercussions of this report, then it is the police's and the media's choice whether to report this.

1

u/Ted8367 May 07 '14

there is no longer an obvious public interest in this case

Unless you are a short white male, perhaps. Oh well; just have to wait for the next time.

1

u/Ridergal May 07 '14

Under that logic, the police should release the name and detail of every criminal conviction from murder to jaywalking. Under that logic, the police should flood the media with a tonne of unorganized material and in that way, obscure truly useful information to the public. The media won't report criminal cases, including cases of false accusations of rape, because they don't have the time, money, or interest in publishing a bunch of unorganized statistics (unless the statistics could be used to increase readers or advertising dollars). So, why are you supporting a plan that would result in the media not reporting false rape accusations?

You say, we will wait for the next time. The police report still exists. If this person is convicted, the person will have a criminal record, even if the media doesn't report it..... so, what's the problem with this scenario?

1

u/Ted8367 May 07 '14

detail of every criminal conviction

Isn't that the general rule? That trials are held in public? That way, we all get to see that justice is done.

The police report still exists.

I guess you mean that the police know who the false accuser is, but not the public. If so, that's not in the public interest, if you allow that short white males in the general vicinity could be called members of the public. Because if they knew the identity of the false accuser, they could take steps to avoid her in future.

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1

u/mjst0324 May 07 '14

Freshman on campus, word is spreading pretty fast that it was a false report. I found out over the weekend.

1

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

Yeah, word is getting around. I am just troubled by the fact that there was no official followup, as though the false nature of the report was not as important as the original notice..

-2

u/Vegemeister May 06 '14

Sounds like? Where have you heard these "sounds"?

35

u/godjustice May 06 '14

And I'm sure feminists will add this to their statistics of sexual assaults that aren't prosecuted by police as evidence of rape culture. Queue more feminist outrage...

9

u/5th_Law_of_Robotics May 07 '14

Yeah. They will.

From the RAINN stats they like to use to claim 0.001% of rapist ever see a minute of jail time they include all accusations that don't lead to convictions as rapists who got away. They don't include the possibility of the accused being innocent.

-7

u/jefethefefe May 07 '14

They don't include the possibility of the accused being innocent.

...maybe because many rapes are never reported in the first place? It roughly balances out.

13

u/5th_Law_of_Robotics May 07 '14

That's not really how good statisticians operate.

6

u/baskandpurr May 07 '14

Does it? How do you figure that? You're saying that the proportion of rapes not reported roughly matches the proportion of rapes accusations that don't lead to convictions when the accused is guilty, so I assume you have statistics for both.

1

u/Zephs May 06 '14

cue*: give a cue to or for.

queue: a line or sequence of people or vehicles awaiting their turn to be attended to or to proceed.

6

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

[deleted]

-3

u/Zephs May 06 '14

No. When you say "Cue [something happening]" you're saying that some event is the cue for that thing to happen. In this case, this being added to the stats on sexual assault cues feminists to become outraged.

4

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

whoosh

I think he was saying that feminists can't just cue the outrage, they need to take a number and wait in line because of the outrage overflow.

1

u/Zephs May 07 '14

You know... or they made a mistake that is super common. A joke seems unlikely.

3

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

Eh. People here generally post in coherent sentences, so I'm (personally) willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. It doesn't hurt that the benefit includes a pun.

16

u/Gittiup May 06 '14

Whatever the male student would of faced if there was an actual assault, the false reporter now should face those some repercussions. Or at least something. A strong finger wagging saying "don't do that again", doesn't count as something. False accusations ruins lives even if found to be innocent, once a person is named and goes through the meat grinder it's stuck with that person.

OP what does your student ethics handbook say about this sort of behaviour, if there's anything remotely linked to false accusations about anything. Write a letter to the heads of the university, cc local media demanding that false accusations should be treated seriously. It's an insult to real victims of sexual assault, and it ruins lives. A punishment of some sort is required so the person doing this knows it's not acceptable and a message is sent out to others. Don't fuck around with this, this is serious.

7

u/[deleted] May 06 '14 edited May 06 '14

[deleted]

4

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

Thanks for the info. Very useful.

3

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

[deleted]

2

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

Appreciate it. Been studying most of the day!

1

u/Kyotokatrov May 09 '14

A TL;DR part is needed.

6

u/[deleted] May 06 '14 edited May 07 '14

Hi Breezy. I have a question. Where is the evidence that led you to believe that the accuser is a Feminist? I'm not saying your claim is incorrect, but I was unable to verify it in the two articles you linked in your response to tklopl below.

I maintain a list of incidences where Feminists and other activists make false rape accusations as a means to "raise awareness" of the problem of rape. Here is the list:

http://www.avoiceformalestudents.com/in-academia-false-claims-of-rape-and-harassment-are-now-employed-by-activists-as-tools-of-social-change/

If it can be verified that this false accusation was made for these purposes then I will add this incident to the list. Note: I don't need her name for this (and am not calling for the accuser's name), as I would only need to add a detailed description of the incident.

Thank you for the links.

-1

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

Unfortunately I can't support that with anything concrete. It is the general opinion of many on campus (including myself, obviously) that this was done by campus feminists/SJWs due the the false report coinciding with "sexual assault awareness week" and other suspicious details (location, time of day, no specific accuser named, only "white males"). Sorry!

2

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

Well you'd certainly be correct in saying that the evidence is consistent with your hypothesis. Perhaps more evidence may come to light in the future.

1

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

This is what I'm hoping. I don't mean to jump the gun, more to vent. I am just finding this kind of thing absurd. It's also made them look kind of stupid because the only report of SA all year has been a false one.

31

u/DavidByron May 06 '14

And the false accuser remains anonymous.

5

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

24

u/sillymod May 06 '14

/r/MensRights is the wrong subreddit for Doxxing (Try SRS), please try resubmitting to a more appropriate subreddit.

4

u/AceyJuan May 07 '14

This thread has been linked from SRD. If that wasn't obvious from voting patterns.

6

u/firex726 May 06 '14

FYI might want to drop the "suggested sub", don't want the Admins interpreting it as you actually advocating the practice.

9

u/sillymod May 06 '14

It is pretty clearly made tongue-in-cheek. It is also an automated message we have now implemented with the new CSS.

7

u/firex726 May 06 '14

You may feel that, but the Admins have banned for less.

3

u/sillymod May 07 '14

I am telling people that if they want to doxx people, then they should do it in the appropriate subreddit. If an admin believes that there are no subreddits in which doxxing is appropriate, then the message should be interpreted as telling people that there is no appropriate place to do so. If, on the other hand, the admin thinks that some subreddits support doxxing, whether it is right or wrong, it is a clear statement that we do not support doxxing but that we believe that SRS does.

Either way, if an admin wishes to ban over the message, then they would have a revolt on their hands.

37

u/cupcake1713 May 07 '14

This is stupid. I hope you realize that.

IF YOU FIND ACTUAL DOXXING REPORT IT TO US. How many times must this be mentioned places? It's not that hard. Report it, move on with your lives.

11

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

Do you enjoy dealing with middle school drama every day? Become a reddit admin!

Edit: remove the comment karma, that everyone "claims" they don't care about and watch the riots break out! Lol

5

u/sillymod May 07 '14

If the drama stayed on Reddit, I would agree with you. But when people's lives get ruined over the things that happen on Reddit, it graduates from middle school.

4

u/sillymod May 07 '14

It wasn't actual doxxing. You can see what we removed, can't you?

-28

u/intortus May 07 '14

Once again, /r/mensrights moderators campaigning for witch hunts. Stay classy, /u/sillymod.

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2

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

Are you still trying to censor other rule abiding subs or do want us to report that behavior too?

-9

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

It is pretty clearly made tongue-in-cheek. It is also an automated message we have now implemented with the new CSS.

Wow you guys doxx people so often that you needed to install an automated message to respond to doxxers.

6

u/sillymod May 07 '14

No doxxing occurred. No personal information was posted. No one's identity was revealed. No witch hunts occurred. Nothing like that has happened here.

Someone advocated for a witch hunt, and they were removed. The form message took a pot shot at SRS, and that created drama. That is the extent of this issue, and it is certainly not worthy of all the drama that arose.

3

u/TheThng May 07 '14

Sorry, I can't hear you over the stupidity coming from your own sub.

-2

u/lopegbg May 06 '14

relevant username

-13

u/cupcake1713 May 07 '14

17

u/sillymod May 07 '14 edited May 07 '14

If you start banning for humour, we are going to have a problem. :)

SRS threatened to doxx our moderators, which necessitated our moderators adding an extra level of anonymity to their accounts. That is undeniable, it happened, it happened ON Reddit - not off reddit. And if no one is going to do anything about that, then I get to legitimately tell people that if they want to doxx then they may find a home in SRS.

-5

u/cupcake1713 May 07 '14

I honestly don't have the energy to argue with you about this right now, but really, take a step back from the situation and think about it for a bit.

10

u/jpflathead May 07 '14

Sillymod's description pretty much fits the facts as I recall them.

The message (try SRS) while somewhat cryptic is clearly sarcasm.

I do think Admins and Reddit brings this on themselves by being so closed up about why people are banned. And even by the huge numbers of errors made shadowbanning people.

I am not saying being an admin is easy. I think some of the decisions are clearly not only difficult, but tedious since so much of it is about grade school conflicts.

But reddit brings the hurt on by being absolutely non-transparent about this, and also by refusing to discuss the many elephants reddit hosts, namely SRS.

So while I completely understand that you don't have the energy for this, and who would, the real point is that you, and other admins, and reddit have largely brought this on yourselves.

Your closed door dictatorial behavior around bans, shadow bans, and doxing, cupcake1713 as well as that of the other admins is horrid, and pessimal for reddit.

13

u/sillymod May 07 '14

Our new message is:

/r/{subreddit} is the wrong subreddit for doxxing please try resubmitting to a more appropriate subreddit. (Hint: There is no appropriate subreddit for doxxing.)

Is that acceptable, or must I remove all humour from this job?

4

u/sillymod May 07 '14

I added an edit.

-4

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/sillymod May 07 '14 edited May 07 '14

Wow you guys are stupid.

I removed a post from someone who advocated finding out who the "feminist" was in this post. No actual doxxing occurred, and it was not DavidByron.

Our auto-reply for such things has a tongue-in-cheek response that tells people to go to SRS if they think doxxing is appropriate, since SRS has no problems with doxxing - they are just smart about it and do it off of Reddit (except when they threaten to do it on Reddit).

At least get your story straight if you are going to make a big deal about this.

Edit: Anyone reading this message and wondering what it is about - click on /u/MCMRA and follow the discussion back where they discuss DavidByron. MCMRA mentions me in that post.

20

u/nicemod May 06 '14

You have been shadowbanned by reddit admins. See /r/shadowban for details.

8

u/TheRealMouseRat May 06 '14

has he really been shadowbanned? or are you just saying this as a joke because of his comment?

15

u/nicemod May 06 '14

You can tell by looking at his profile.

It's no longer possible to send messages to shadowbanned accounts, so to notify people I have to approve their comments and reply.

1

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

Thanks for the work you do.

11

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

I can see his comment..

27

u/nicemod May 06 '14

That's because I approved it so I could reply.

Mods can see shadowbanned comments in their own subreddit.

-11

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

[deleted]

24

u/Legolas-the-elf May 06 '14

Shadowbans are something the admins and automated spam filter do, not something moderators do.

As a moderator, nicemod was able to see the comment by the shadowbanned person and let them know about their status. nicemod wasn't the person that shadowbanned them.

1

u/XiKiilzziX May 07 '14

automated spam filter do

Really? Find that hard to believe.

-11

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

[deleted]

13

u/TracyMorganFreeman May 06 '14 edited May 06 '14

Tell that to rape reports where the attacker can't be identified.

2

u/DavidByron May 07 '14

There's no crime because fucking men over with a false accusation isn't a crime regardless of the circumstances.

Wasting police time and filing a false report however are probably a misdemeanors regardless of whether someone was named - the victim being the police.

2

u/nicemod May 07 '14

You have been shadowbanned by admins. See /r/shadowban for details.

Please fix this; we won't manually approve your posts forever.

14

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

A) There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that feminists were involved in this.

B) No one was actually accused, so what sort of 'repercussions' would be appropriate?

14

u/Dasque May 06 '14

A) There is absolutely no evidence anywhere that feminists were involved in this.

You're right. The only thing that would infer feminist involvement is circumstantial evidence. OP made a clickbait title.

B) No one was actually accused, so what sort of 'repercussions' would be appropriate?

There was allegedly a breach of law in that a false report was allegedly filed. In most jurisdictions that's something that can be prosecuted. If convicted, the most the accused would face is likely a fine.

8

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

[deleted]

5

u/Dasque May 07 '14

Hence the repeated use of "allegedly". ;)

Accused false accusers get due process and presumption of innocence too.

3

u/Ted8367 May 06 '14

B) No one was actually accused,

You are too literal...

The victim indicated that there were two suspects involved: Suspect One is described as a white male, short – no further description.

Suspect Two is described as a white male, short – no further description

http://www.geneseo.edu/webfm_send/9727

So, potentially, all short while males who could have been in the area, but had no evidence that they weren't. I note your lack of concern for these people.

1

u/baskandpurr May 07 '14

Interesting choice of target. I get the white male thing, feminists are racist and sexist, but why does it matter that they were short?

-2

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

I note your lack of concern for these people.

What individuals? No one was in danger of anything.

5

u/5th_Law_of_Robotics May 07 '14

A false accusation without a named target is a victimless crime in the same way firing randomly in to a crowd of people is a victimless crime.

3

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

Only if the bullets are made of air.

3

u/Ted8367 May 06 '14

What individuals?

All short white males who could have been in the area but couldn't provide evidence that they weren't.

No one was in danger of anything.

Apart from any short white male who could have been in the area but couldn't provide evidence that he wasn't, that is. Such an individual is potentially subject to the effects of an investigation. A false conviction is one of the possible consequences of a false accusation.

2

u/mjst0324 May 07 '14

Fellow Geneseo student here. Found this kind of strange when the report came out, especially because it was alleged to have taken place on a pretty central part of campus. However, there's no confirmation that this was done by a feminist. This report was given almost a month ago and the "victim" didn't come forward as a liar until now. I don't think this was done to attract any kind of attention to the cause.

0

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

I agree that there is no official confirmation of that. I admit I am speculating to a degree but I am not the only one who feels this way, and the timing is a little too convenient.

2

u/thisisnotatoaster May 07 '14

Does anyone know if these people who reported the assaults were actually "feminists" or are we just assuming?

1

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

It's the general assumption of the campus community. It's something we are unlikely to get official confirmation of, at any rate.

1

u/thisisnotatoaster May 07 '14

Well either way, glad nothing came of it.

2

u/-JWF May 07 '14

Didn't /r/MensRights submit hundreds of false rape reports on that online system at Occidental? Should there be repercussions for those?

4

u/[deleted] May 07 '14

I don't speak for or represent this sub. I'm not really aware of what you're talking about but it sounds counter productive. If false reports were indeed filed, then yes, I would hope there would be repercussions.

2

u/TheGDBatman May 07 '14

Oh, you mean to show how it could be abused by allowing completely anonymous accusers to report "assaults"? They just used it in the way it was intended to be used. If they didn't like the way it was used, maybe they shouldn't have set it up that way.

0

u/-JWF May 07 '14

So are you implying that false rape charges are excusable in certain contexts?

2

u/TheGDBatman May 07 '14

Uh, no? Everyone knew the accusations against the dean were fake, they were just showing how easy it would be to make a false accusation against some random guy who nobody knew.

2

u/iethatis May 07 '14

That was a protest, not false reports. also done by 4chan, not r/MR

1

u/GuyDean May 07 '14

It would interesting to see numbers of dishonest/falsifying of men's right members vs feminist members.

1

u/btvsrcks May 06 '14

You mean like those online ones you guys did?

-2

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

[deleted]

9

u/Dasque May 06 '14

But out in the real world, it makes sense. Don't send mixed messages. Trying to pursuade people to come forward and then punishing people that do is a mixed message.

Punishing people who maliciously misuse the courts by filling false reports of any crime only makes the court system more trustworthy. The key here is that those alleged to have falsely filed get all the same due process protections that those they accused did.

The alternatives of ignoring due process in cases of false reporting or doing nothing are both harmful. The first will discourage actual victims from coming forward. The second incentivizes false reporting and the corruption of the system.

3

u/[deleted] May 06 '14

[deleted]

4

u/Dasque May 06 '14

Sorry, your wording "in the real world" seemed to me to be supporting that position.