Men's Rights/4chan raid on a college's sexual assault reporting page gets mixed results in /r/mensrights. "Before you guys get your underwear in a bunch, it may help to actually read the fucking document." Popcorn throughout. (np.reddit.com)
SubredditDrama
165 ups - 68 downs = 97 votes
203 comments submitted at 18:11:57 on Dec 17, 2013 by KettleChipz1
Of all schools, I am surprised they are targeting Occidental College. OC just went through a ton of press when they admitted to downplaying rape reports and discouraging police reports to make their school look safer.
Edit: http://www.laweekly.com/2013-06-27/news/rape-occidental-college/full/
Huh. UC Davis copped to OVERreporting rapes a couple years ago.
Clearly Jerry Brown is putting something in California's water.
Sigh. We are all fucked if both sides keep over/under reporting things to advance their prerogative.
Can't /r/mensrights be banned for this?
I fucking hope so
>The quickest way to shut this one down is to anonymously report random women and let them sweat in the hot seat.
How are statements like that seen as mensrights? Because it seems like simply hating women. Why is a sub like that agreeing with that statement? They would freak out if anyone suggested to report random men on campus and hope some sweat it out and worry.
So only report women, and you hope they 'sweat in the hot seat'.
Why not report both men and women? Why not hope they see it as a joke? Or simply don't fucking report students who will freak the fuck out over such things and instead report all the faculty.
Seriously, they want to report just women and hope they take it badly. Yea, that's certainly mensrights...
"Women who false report are literally rapists that should be penalized like rapists, or at least go to jail forever and ever."
Five minutes later...
"Hey everyone, let's use this form to falsely accuse people of rape!"
That's a pretty huge misinterpretation. The idea is to flood the thing with reports against it's advocates to prove that the system is easily abused, not to actually get someone in trouble over a rape accusation.
Which is why they are flooding the system with reports about real people, all of whom are women. Instead of using made up names like Mickey Mouse. Right?
"I'm going to prove that guns are dangerous. I'll do that by going out right now, buying one, and shooting up K-Mart."
"I'm going to prove that it's easy to kidnap children from a bus stop. I'll do that by getting in my car, and kidnapping a kid from a bus stop."
"I'm going to prove that it's easy to embezzle money from my work. I'm going to prove it by embezzling money."
"I'm going to prove that fucking stupid people can break and abuse pretty much anything. I'll prove it by being a fucking stupid person and breaking and abusing this system."
After you've shot all the children to prove guns are dangerous, the fact that guns are considered dangerous won't bring them back. On the other had if the system ends up being shut down the reports would all be disregarded. Completely different situations as in their idea no one would end up hurt be hurt.
Except rape victims, whether they're male or female. But who gives a shit about them?
>no one would end up hurt
Cool, let's go for the kidnapping of children thing. Just return them after a bit, I'm sure people won't mind.
And thus preventing any actual reports of sexual assault from getting through, including male victims.
Men's Rights: Why help men when we can harass women?
We have people who investigate sexual assault charges, they're called the police. Too bad they're encumbered by things like "evidence" and "due process".
I used to think /r/mensrights just hated feminists, now i'm positive that they hate all women. That post is literally calling for false rape accusations against random women, and its got over 130 votes.
This is the best evidence. Now when the MRM is brought up, people will think of this!
I've noticed that a lot of subs start out with good intentions and then end up attracting the worst of the worst. SRSsucks is a good example. What was once simply a place to point out when SRS gets exceptionally silly and laugh about it became a reactionary hot bed of knuckle dragging sexists and racists fuckboys so I noped the fuck out.
I haven't posted there or browsed in ages, but this post that showed up on my feed randomly pretty much confirmed what I known for sometime;
http://www.reddit.com/r/SRSsucks/comments/1su1oa/theradicalandthesjwthenewmentalillness/
>When it comes to feminism, there is varied flavors (it's like a diet coke you found under the sofa you thought was lost 2 yrs ago.)
>Radical feminism
>Social justice
>Mainstream feminism
>Feminism
>I can say that the upper 3 of feminists can have a large part a mental illness due to the lines of pushing the blame onto others, denying responsibility, thinking of yourself as a non-human or as a restricted class, even making up shit to cover up actions. You'd think even in a professional sense that radical feminism, social justice even some form of mainstream feminism should be classified as a mental illness.
>I'm not in such a field but i'd love to know why hasn't this been discussed cause there are verifiable mental illness out there where traits can be linked towards feminism.
Edit: Not to imply that hating feminists is a good intention. Moreso that men rights probably started as a legitimate cause for men who for whatever reason feel marginalized in society, and then became "hurrr durrr fuck women" as the sub grew in size and attracted reactionary elements.
I don't think they hate all women, but I think for some, their empathy for women ends when any sign of inequality towards men begins. It's a problem, and probably one that hurts the feminist movement as well.
That said, four hours later and I'm still baffled by that comment. It really is grossly immature.
e: Did I not make it clear enough that I don't condone any of their actions? Ah, it doesn't matter anyway, does it?
Nah, from what I've seen, their empathy for women ends when any sign of equality with men begins.
They might claim or think that they don't hate women, but their community is sure showing its stripes when people call that post on its bullshit. Every post that criticizes it for attacking women and suggests something slightly less irrational such as filing false rape claims against faculty or their arch-enemy, the feminazi, is downvoted. There's even people in there justifying attacking random women over any other group, and they have been upvoted for doing so.
I mean, the second highest voted reply, currently +44 in the positive, says
>Infringing on another's rights the highlight that you rights are being trampled is never ok. Blatantly false accusations are never ok, even as a form of activism.
and the third highest, currently at +7, opens with
>No, no, no, no. It is never just to fight injustice with MORE injustice. I've long spoken out against feminists who do this, and I have to do the same here. That is not the model we want to follow.
but let's not let that get in the way of the hate train.
Yet a comment with the exact same message is downvoted? why? because the members of /r/mensrights are assuming that post is talking about feminists. The guy who wrote that comment got downvoted for making the clarification that he was referring to /r/mensrights response.
77 is more than 44 or 7.
>How are statements like that seen as mensrights?
Its basically the MR version of If men could get pregnant abortion would be a sacrament. Although the MR one has an action they could take (but it does not explicitly call for it), and doesn't have the blatant transphobia.
FRA? False rape accusation?
Good lord, they gave it an acronym.
And an FRA can result in considerable damage up to and including death!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/9788265/Teenager-falsely-accused-of-rape-beaten-to-death-by-gang.html
Your circlejerking is actually more likely than you think.
...and yet here is a supposed rights group making a mockery of the whole thing. What are they trying to achieve here? All I see is them making themselves look hypocritical and heartless.
Along with any men who are too ashamed to admit to being the victims of rape and sexual assault to be able to make some kind of a statistical difference.
Or does /r/mr think that men cannot be the victims of rape?
They only care about male rape victims when a girl talks about being raped.
Or when it helps further their cause.
>They only care about male rape victims when ... when it helps further their cause.
Isn't that a tautology? They only care about their cause when it furthers their cause?
Don't get me wrong, I'm no fan of /r/MR nor of MRAs in general, but when one of their less contentious causes is better support of male rape victims it seems strange to criticism them for only caring when its relevant.
No, I don't think you understand what I'm saying. Or I'm just not wording it very well. (Probably the second one).
The only time they show any form of support or care for male rape victims, is when they can shove it in people's face to shout about how bad it is. And usually when they do it, they're doing it in a thread with a girl talking about how she was raped.
Any time after that, they don't care. Or they do something like this and generally make it harder for men who have been raped.
> And usually when they do it, they're doing it in a thread with a girl talking about how she was raped.
Or maybe that's the only place you see it?
>they don't care
holy sweeping generalizations, batman. I don't even frequent it that much (although the drama is delicious) but claiming every single men's rights activist only cares about male rape when female rape comes up... is just super super dumb.
I think you're being a little unfair, Nick Naylor.
You and I seem to be looking at this differently: You see mockery, I see them indicating in what ways the system can be abused.
...by abusing it.
I wanted my neighborhood to put up security cameras so I started robbing people.
They are the only ones abusing it.
It's like rich people submitting false information to qualify for financial aid, then saying they don't actually want the money, they just want to stop others from being able to get it.
You don't think they could've been more tactful and less immature, hypocritical and selfish by writing an email?
Which would have been promptly disregarded.
Now they're going to make their whole movement be promptly disregarded. Kudos!
By who? Anyone that thought this system was a good idea instead of actually addressing the issue (the attitudes of staff members to whom alleged rapes are reported) probably already disdains any kind of MRA movement.
By everyone else who hears about this and didn't know much about the MRA movement.
>probably already disdains any kind of MRA movement.
I have a feeling that number is gonna increase when people find out they like sticking it to victims instead of actually contact the people that made the process. I mean it's just spiteful at the minimum. No one has even shown that false reports would go anywhere.
You seem very passionate, so I'm curious--how would you revise the system as it stands now?
Aren't you supposed to make a mockery of the thing?
But you do that so well by yourselves :)
That's an isolated incident. So that doesn't support your allegation that it's "more likely than you think."
On the other hand, here's some statistics that allege that the estimated amount of women worldwide that are killed every year in "honor killings" because they're raped is about 5,000 women.
Put up studies and statistics, or stop making claims you can't back up.
I don't understand your point. Do MRAs deny that honour killings occur?
the unlawful killing of accused rapists (both male and female) in the United States (where the original article takes place) is not a common practice. I would argue that it's nonexistent, but we have a long history of lynching due to rape accusation where race was a factor (in the past), and there are also a lot of people here, so I'm sure there must be a few exceptions (in the present). To even suggest it is a likelihood is false. It is much more likely for a person who makes a rape accusation to be harassed, goaded and cajoled--this goes for both women and men (and especially men) who are accused of rape.
I guessed (wrongly I guess) that it stood for Female Right's Advocate, like an attempt to relabel feminists in line with MRA.
[deleted]
The majority of sexual assaults go unreported. This is because of the victim's feelings shame, fear and deep-seated cultural notions that the woman is somehow to blame.
So naturally the first thing to consider when someone musters the courage to report a rape is how overwhelmingly likely it's an "FRA".
The vast majority of rapists will never spend time in jail.
Just like how redditors think the biggest issue in racism is reverse racism, the biggest problem in criminal justice is FRAs.
r/MensRights/, doing their bit.
When a user with the name 'GALACTIC_BUTTHOLE' is more reasonable than an entire community, something is wrong with that community.
Ins't that the beauty of reddit?(maybe beauty isn't the right word)
Irony.
I don't understand what the point of reporting the rape/sexual assault will have?
Can anyone explain to me what the outcome of the report will have? What if the student accused refuses to attend the meeting?
Will this form prevent victims from contacting the correct authorities? Theres a culture of victim blaming when it comes to victims of rape and sexual assault, doesn't this anonymous form just perpetuate the stereotype making it less likely victims will go straight to the police?
Forgive me if i'm being dim! Just curious. I guess it would be good to gather information in regards to the amount of possible instances of rape and sexual assault happening on the campus. Or at least, it could have been.
They are hoping it will
a) encourage people to come forward (if they get several credible reports on the same person, they can investigate further)
b) Give the alleged perpetrator a nasty shock, that may keep them in line if they really did assault someone, working on the assumption the that it's better than nothing.
That's the charitable interpretation. The less charitable one is they want to keep this kind of thing in house to avoid embarrassment/bad PR.
Yeah, my initial feeling was that this was a way for the college to keep the "numbers down". I read a lot about colleges in America covering up cases etc and this just gave me a weird feeling.
In terms of a person being investigated what can the college actually do? As far as i'm aware they don't have any special powers to conduct that type of work, wouldn't they have to send the information to the police? In a sense they get to play middle man with the info instead of it going straight to the police?
Eg. A number of reports are recieved about someone lurking at a certain location at night, harrassing or worse to various women. If the college recieved that info before the police they could attempt to cover it up?
Couldn't the police in that district offer an anonymous tip off line?
Just a few thoughts.
From what ive heard of occidental college its probably the latter.
In addition to helping the school see trends, it's a safe baby-step towards reporting to proper authorities too. It gives them a first run at expressing what happened to them, so they'll realize the world didn't end when they 'reported it' and they might be able to handle going to proper authorities.
That's what i'm talking about, it makes women assume the world will end if they do report it to the authorities! Women and men shouldn't feel the need to take baby steps at reporting anything to the police, they are trained to deal with these situations. They are there to help!
By submitting the report to the college you allow them to do pretty much anything with that information. Who is going to be reading the reports? Does the college have your best interests at heart or do they just want to minimize any bad PR that will relate from the incidents?
but there's nothing stopping a girl from reporting to BOTH the anonymous form letter online AND actual police.
And once they've reported to the anonymous form letter, they might feel more comfortable reporting to actual police.
If you reported it to the police there would be absolutely no need to report it to the form letter at all as they have no power to do anything?
Feel more comfortable how? What if the rape occured between a teacher and a student? The student is going to see no action taken towards the teacher at all, the school has the power to cover it up if they wish.
I'm not sure what youre having so much trouble grasping here.
In the specific situation where a student might have experienced a sexual assault and would be, as is far too common, scared or intimidated at the idea of going directly to the police. They might first use this anonymous form to communicate their assault. Afterwards, regardless of the reaction of the school (which, as far as I see, the submitter would have no information on how the school reacts to the information anyways), they might THEN feel comfortable with the prospect of going to the police as their first communication about the assault was not distressing on its own as they might have feared.
You say that the student should go to the police instead of the school because the school might handle it badly, as if police never handle sexual assaults badly.
The student might realize that there is no way to prove their assault. Not every sexual assault leaves bruises or dna. Nor even with that evidence can the nature of it being consented to or not be proved. So going to the police might not always be the best idea. Because then it just becomes a 'he said she said' and the more charismatic party wins regardless of fault. But the school's system of tracking this data collected, and advising any named students that they were named and to cease any behavior that would qualify as sexual assault. That can happen.
Hearing from an authority figure that your sexual encounter with someone else might have not been consented to would make those that did engage in such encounters reason to pause. If the submitted inquiry was a lie, then no sexual encounter actually happened and the accused knows it was a lie (ie: 'you were accused of taking advantage of someone at the library on tuesday' but I wasn't even at the library on Tuesday). Nothing else is happening to the accused except this. So no harm.
So your saying reporting a rape and then when nothing happens the victim will be more comfortable reporting it again to the police? By the time the victim reports it to the police there will be no evidence. Are you crazy? If you're raped you GO TO THE POLICE. I can't even believe i'm having this discussion it's honestly insane. I'm sure the police have anonymous tip off lines too.
How likely are people going to be reporting a rape to the school who is then going to talk to the person accused of the rape. The person accused of the rape is going to know who accused them? The only person who won't know who accused them is the college/authorities? What's to stop the accused person going and speaking to the person who submitted the report? It's the dumbest thing i've ever heard.
Even if there is no way to prove the assault you can still go to the police, they will offer you support. Who is more likely to handle a sexual assault badly, the POLICE WHO ARE TRAINED IN DEALING WITH SEXUAL ASSAULTS. Or some guy/woman working at the college? The same college that found a guy guilty of raping a woman and gave him a five page book report as punishment? ARE YOU INSANE?
You think sitting down with a rapist and talking to them is going to change their mind? OF COURSE NOT, THEY ARE GOING TO RAPE AGAIN YOU IDIOT BECAUSE THEY KNOW THEY CAN GET AWAY WITH IT. It's like acussing some guy of stealing, calling them into the office and saying we have reason to believe you stole a TV, we can't do anything about it though so don't do it again. I'm sure this stern talking to will be enough to teach you a lesson.
This discussion is so crazy to me. I honestly can't believe it.
> Hearing from an authority figure that your sexual encounter with someone else might have not been consented to would make those that did engage in such encounters reason to pause. If the submitted inquiry was a lie, then no sexual encounter actually happened and the accused knows it was a lie (ie: 'you were accused of taking advantage of someone at the library on tuesday' but I wasn't even at the library on Tuesday). Nothing else is happening to the accused except this. So no harm.
An innocent person being told they've been accused of rape is no harm to you? That would freak anyone the fuck out. It certainly wont be easy for them to concentrate on their classes knowing there is someone out there with an apparent vendetta against them.
Not to mention there will now be a record of their named linked to rape. If this ever becomes public knowledge, people may try to enact vigilante justice.
there's nothing called reverse racism, except not racism. It's either racism or its not.
>This is because of the victim's feelings shame, fear and deep-seated cultural notions that the woman is somehow to blame.
Women aren't the only victims of rape. Excluding men from that statement, even accidentally, says a lot. I know it wasn't your intention to exclude victims but it still isn't fair.
> The majority of sexual assaults go unreported. This is because of the victim's feelings shame, fear and deep-seated cultural notions that the woman is somehow to blame.
This is because of the victim's feelings shame, fear and deep-seated cultural notions that the man or woman is somehow to blame.*
/fixed
>So naturally the first thing to consider when someone musters the courage to report a rape is how overwhelmingly likely it's an "FRA".
It's already been established that nothing happens from this report. The alleged rapist receives a talk about sexual conduct. An academic institution should not be investigating rape claims. It's a serious crime and should be left to the police. If the concern is tracking the number of incidents (which would actually be useful), they could have had the same report page without the "name of perpetrator" option.
>The vast majority of rapists will never spend time in jail.
And the number of rapists that don't see jail time will only increase if victims do not go to the police. Once again, a college can not do shit about this situation.
>r/MensRights/, doing their bit.
This is actually the first time I've seen feminists care about false accusations.
>This is actually the first time I've seen feminists care about false accusations.
If it is, it's only because mens rights activists are actively filing them.
>If it is, it's only because mens rights activists are actively filing them.
You mean to tell me there are people out there willing to exploit the system to push their own agenda?
No big deal though, by my calculations only 2% of MRA's participated - which is a really really small number.
Pushing their anti-false accusation agenda by making false accusations.
Ladies and gentlemen; Men's Rights "Activism."
Most feminists would agree that false accusations are incredibly rare and not that harmful. No use getting worked up about this. 98% of MRA's don't make false accusations.
If they'd only stop proving that they're a bunch of reactionary trolls every 5 minutes maybe they'd be taken seriously.
Where would the fun in that be?
Two things that come to mind in my brain thoughts:
While not agreeing with their methods, I understand their logic. They are trying to show how the system can be abused in the most in-your-face way possible.
The second thing is that they went about this the completely wrong way. At least I think they missed a huge opportunity to help men (and women as well, really). The stigma on survivors is undeniably worse for both male and female survivors if the perpetrator was a woman. Not to mention that the victim protections and criminal charges barely apply in those cases. This is something the MRM at least claims to care about, so why not make full use of an anonymous system that allows for some (even the slightest) action to be taken against the perpetrators?
The people least likely to come forward could make the most use of this system. So why don't the MRAs try to open it up as much as possible to these groups? This would have the benefit of A) Helping men who are overlooked B) Helping women who are overlooked (which adds credibility by giving tangible equality C) Making feminists look absolutely terrible if they object or derail. They would literally have to be supportive or look like they hated survivors. Win win win win win win.
I know hindsight and shit, but for fuck's sake there were better ways this could have gone over.
Sorry I wrote so much.
[deleted]
Or the 924 of them that upvoted a misleading submission title without actually clicking & reading
Or all the ones who upvoted people who said they should go in and report random women.
[deleted]
That's not an argument. All submissions face the same exact conditions. Yet this post was upvoted at a rather large rate. If you don't think you can tell something about a subreddit by what gets upvoted there, you understand reddit less than you think you do.
At least, they'd have a reason to complain if they weren't being taken seriously.
Holy crap, massive downvote brigade in here. Some people are a little bit upset about this.
The Fedoration of MaRAuders is at it again!
Well it's just dumb. The two reactions to being anonymously accused are "WTF" or "Oh, yeah it must be that chick I raped" either making it pointless or a tool for solely false accusations.
I think the best (well worst) part of this drama is from the form: > In compliance with the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act (Clery Act) (20 U.S.C. section 1092), information submitted via this form reflecting a reportable crime, as defined by the Clery Act, will be included in the Campus Safety Daily Crime Log. No names are included in the Daily Crime Log.
Also and this is the awful part. They must report the "general location of each crime". This stuff will get entered into public record, it will show up in stats, and depending on how the crime log is run it may very easily track back to specific people's houses.
In summary, 4chan and /r/mensrights is engaged in top level asshattery.
Edit: Their daily crime log. We'll get to see if any of them actually had the utter lack of morals to make the reports in a few days
If they really are doing that... subs have been banned for behaviour that was nowhere near as bad as this.
First, I hope /r/MensRights gets banned for this because this is fucking awful. Like, totally shitstain on the underpants of humanity level of awful.
Second, I want /r/MensRights banned because drama. Think of the glorious, buttery, spectacular drama.
>First, I hope /r/MensRights[1] gets banned for this because this is fucking awful. Like, totally shitstain on the underpants of humanity level of awful.
If anything is a banning offense this is. They banned game of trolls for contributing to reddit fun and exciting way, so they better damn well do something about this.
The 'b.b.b.but what about SRS" that will repeated ad infinitum would be glorious.
We'll see. Crime for the 15th is up already so in a couple days if there is crime on the 17th, sexual assault specifically, then they actually went and did it. (Probably).
I think you messed up your edit.
So I did. O_O.
much better now.
So apparently the problem is that this form isn't going to magically stop rape and false rape accusations and is therefore terrible?
People who try to collect statistics about things we don't know that much about are literally Hitler.
The Men's Rights Movement on Reddit:
"False rape claims are a really bad problem and cause harm to both men & women if we don't respect due process being shown to the accused".
"lol let's falsely report a pile of rapes in order to further our attack on feminists".
>lol let's falsely report a pile of rapes in order to further our attack on ~~feminists~~ women.
FTFY
It's such a terrible procedural problem that the police have to do their job and investigate allegations of criminal activity; what an abuse of a system set up to do precisely that.
I know, let's make that procedural problem worse, that will really prove our point and legitimize our movement.
It seems like the school was trying to come up with a reasonable policy--there's nothing inflammatory or irrational about it. A lot of rape victims (male and female, and I would argue especially male) don't come forward because of stigma. It makes sense to try this policy out.
And really, if the accusation is false it should be pretty easy to disprove an anonymously submitted report. You'll have witnesses, alibis and all that jazz.
You shouldn't need to "disprove" an accusation, an accusation should need to be proven. That's the problem here. If you're sitting in your dorm reading a book, you very well may not have "witnesses, alibis, and all that jazz."
I don't know about you, but a justice system that requires you to be your own lawyer and detective before you even so much as call in an anonymous tip sounds fucking awesome.
This weekend, actually, I called in a tip about some angry dude that looked like he was trying to break into a car parked behind our building with a rock. I gave the dispatcher a description and the license plate, and then went on my business.
Imagine how much more efficient the justice system would be if I would have to upload proof that I was physically there, along with the man's DNA evidence (that I processed in my own lab), and a video of him trying to bash in the window. But not before I located the owner of the car myself, and helpfully constructed and argued their entire case over the phone to a police dispatcher.
Then I'd take off work, go to court, and tell a jury exactly what I've already told the dispatcher, because our justice system is so fucking spectacular and efficient like that. And this would totally not be a waste of anyone's time -- expecting every private citizen to be a fully trained police detective and criminal lawyer.
Wow, nobody would be falsely accused! Problem solved! Probably because nobody would be accused of anything, period. But who cares?
Well, your analogy would be more apt if your phone calls were completely anonymous and you had the capacity of making false accusations left and right without anyone finding out who was doing it. It would also be more apt if police only needed a preponderance of evidence to charge someone with breaking into cars, just like universities only need that standard to punish someone for sexual assault.
I recognize victims have problems with coming forward, but it's like you're not even trying to see the problems with this approach.
You can anonymously tip the police... since practically forever.
But I enjoy that you're assuming that everyone who uses that form is going to abuse it and lie. Because the false accusation rate of criminal offenses is just so darn high, everyone goes to jail without a trial, and so many people, both men and women, haven't stated that their sense of shame prevents them from reporting sexual assault.
So yeah, I could totally see how the form is a problem if you assume that everyone lies about being raped and falsely accuses people of raping them. Kind of like how 4chan and /r/MensRights are, right now.
> You can anonymously tip the police... since practically forever.
> But I enjoy that you're assuming that everyone who uses that form is going to abuse it and lie.
You realize the majority of tips sent to police are unsubstantiated and completely unhelpful, right?
>Because the false accusation rate of criminal offenses is just so darn high, everyone goes to jail without a trial, and so many people, both men and women, haven't stated that their sense of shame prevents them from reporting sexual assault.
Colleges can not conduct police investigations. Keeping a database of alleged rapists is a recipe for disaster. If that list ever gets exposed, these people could be victims of vigilante justice. Not to mention that an anonymous user could probably make multiple reports about the same person.
>So yeah, I could totally see how the form is a problem if you assume that everyone lies about being raped and falsely accuses people of raping them. Kind of like how 4chan and /r/MensRights are, right now.
Only 2% of MRA's are like that. That's incredibly low, hardly meaningful.
>You realize the majority of tips sent to police are unsubstantiated and completely unhelpful, right?
Which is why they're illegal. Oh wait, they aren't.
>Keeping a database of alleged rapists is a recipe for disaster. If that list ever gets exposed, these people could be victims of vigilante justice.
So, the college should just not do any research about crime rates on its campus? Hey, it's not like it just went through a media smear campaign about it's own shitty policies about rape. Wait, it did. Maybe it posted something about how it's using this as a statistical tool. Nah. (Oh shit, yes, it totally did.)
But yes, fuck university research. So evil.
> Only 2% of MRA's are like that. That's incredibly low, hardly meaningful.
They're the most upvoted replies on the thread. I haven't seen a fucking feminist tumblr that encourages its members to falsely report people of a criminal offense, let alone one with the reach and viewership of /r/mensrights.
If this is your movement, fuck your movement.
> Which is why they're illegal. Oh wait, they aren't.
It's the job of the police to investigate and solve crimes. Last I checked, the purpose of an academic institution was to educate students. Why would anyone trust a college to handle a serious crime like rape?
>So, the college should just not do any research about crime rates on its campus? Hey, it's not like it just went through a media smear campaign about it's own shitty policies about rape. Wait, it did. Maybe it posted something about how it's using this as a statistical tool. Nah. (Oh shit, yes, it totally did.)
You can have the anonymous report without naming the perpetrator. It serves the same purpose without creating a witch hunt.
>They're the most upvoted replies on the thread. I haven't seen a fucking feminist tumblr that encourages its members to falsely report people of a criminal offense, let alone one with the reach and viewership of /r/mensrights.
They're not real MRA's. MRA's just want men to be equal to women.
Police can still track phone calls if false reporting becomes a problem.
I am not assuming everyone who uses it will lie, but the ease with which this system can be abused is disturbing. And I think a lot of people don't see that. What /r/MensRights is doing is speeding up the rate at which people realize this so that nobody with actual intent to harm does so. I'm not sure how I feel about their approach, but I am surprised at how many people here are immediately jumping to defend the program.
I feel like anything short of the accused party breaking down and confessing, it's hugely unlikely anything would come from these meetings.
Then what's the point of the system at all? If anything, the university will have more incentive to punish to "prove" that their new system is working.
The problem is its puts an 'expel me' button on the forehead of every male student. Oh, and no one can see you press it.
Except it really doesn't.
> People who try to collect statistics about things we don't know
Where does the reporting page mention anything about collecting statistics?
"This form should be used by members of the Occidental College community who have experienced or have been witness to sexual violence (sexual assault, rape or sexual battery). The information will be used to identify and address troubling trends."
Quoted in the linked comment.
Right, but a statistic is not the same thing as a trend.
"Lots of men are wearing kipper ties this season" = trend
"8 out of 10 men we interviewed said they wear kipper ties on a regular basis" = statistic.
Of course, a statistic can be taken to infer the existence of a trend, but they're not the same thing.
Let's say (hypothetically speaking) out of 100 occasions the form was submitted, 10 contained claims of being raped by a man with a moustache and glasses. What kind of statistical information could you glean from that? You could glean the statistic that 10% of the time the form was submitted, it contained claims of being raped by a man with a moustache and glasses. What kind of trend could you infer from that statistic? You could infer a trend of an individual or individuals unknown, submitting the form with a claim of being raped by a man with a moustache and glasses. Nothing more, and nothing less.
As a tool for gathering statistics, the form would suffer from the following defects:
Self-selecting sample, totally uncontrolled use of the form (anyone who has internet access can fill it out)
Unverified, unreliable data (no-one has any way of knowing if any of the data collected by the form is accurate or true)
That's why I mentioned statistics. The people who set up the page said nothing about collating responses from the form into any kind of dataset, and there wouldn't be much point in them trying. All they could measure is the use of the form, not the level or type of sexual assault that is actually ocurring. Since the form is so open to abuse, it has little or no value for research.
Bullshit.
A statistic is a function of data. You have your data in the form of reports, therefore you can create statistics. It's not a controlled longitudinal study of assaults on this campus, but it's extremely valuable for research, especially considering the nature of the data that you're collecting in the first place. (remember one of the reasons for the form is people often don't report sexual assault in the first place)
> Self-selection bias is the problem that very often results when survey respondents are allowed to decide entirely for themselves whether or not they want to participate in a survey. [...] In most instances, self-selection will lead to biased data
http://srmo.sagepub.com/view/encyclopedia-of-survey-research-methods/n526.xml
I'm well aware of self-selection bias. That doesn't make this data worth "little to no value for research" (your words) -- it just means that you have to know what you can and cannot do with the data.
OK, what could you do with the data? What kind of statistics could you derive from it? How would you know those statistics were sufficiently accurate or reliable?
[As an extreme (but actually plausible, given the openess of the form) example, what would you do if 5% of respondents reported being raped by an alien? What then? Are you going to send out an alien-hunting posse? The form's usefulness as either a reporting or research tool is severely limited, precisely because it is so open to such 'crack-pot' claims.]
With the data on its own:
You could then use the data that was gathered in combination with other data to:
>As an extreme (but actually plausible, given the openess of the form) example
Lying takes effort and most people are lazy (and most students probably wouldn't want to risk their education by abusing a service aimed at helping crime victims)
Yeah, emphasis on those last few, lol. Because you wouldn't know if a damn word of your dataset was the least bit true or accurate.Those reports could contain literally anything. Completely unsubstantiated self reports.
As the old saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out".
You in this sub thread: mental gymnastics.
> A right to an attorney is universal. You can legitimately say, at any moment and in any place "this is Ted, my attorney. He's gonna listen to this."
This cracks me up so hard.
I don't play around, son. I made sure my full legal team was on board for my 2PM office hours meeting with my professor.
Not just for the meeting with the professor - at any moment and in any place - at a first date for example "This is Ted, my attorney. He's gonna listen to this". You never know - with all those FRAs these days.
> You never know - with all those FRAs these days.
Yeah, I hear that FRAs are up 50,000% at Occidental College. Scary stuff...
I wonder how that happened.
99% of MRAs' "activism" is invading comments sections and other petty internet mischief so this will probably be their defining achievement of 2013.
Holy shit. The one time MRAs actually do something and it's this. (Sarcastic slow clap)
Activism!
Regardless of anything else, I see that tracking trends in where these accusations occur is probably the most useful thing that could happen.
It gives the ability to track who may be targets of false accusations, it gives the ability to track who may actually be perpetrating/allowing that kind of behavior, and it gives other advantages.
For instance, what if one of the houses on frat row turns up being a hotbed of sexually assault? If they're slipping girls roofies and all kinds of other stuff, who's to say there's not a few gay/bi guys doing the same thing to guys? Also, people that tend to do those kinds of things aren't known for being what one would call citizens of the year. The investigation could lead to the discovery of harassment, hazing, and God alone knows what else.
On a side note, does anybody know how they created that google docs form? I assume it dumpes the report into a spreadsheet, right? I could SERIOUSLY use something like this to streamline some shit I have to deal with at work.
It's called Google Forms, and it works exactly how you think it does. http://www.google.com/google-d-s/createforms.html
I have to wonder, after reading the wild legal theories being upvoted in that thread, does /r/mensrights have any attorneys whatsoever who post on the boards to correct all the nonsense? Because the idea that a private university's actions can implicate due process is... novel to say the least, and all the whining about due process is completely inappropriate. Keep in mind we aren't talking about a public university that is beholden to state/federal due process guarantees, but a private institution that can formulate its own internal disciplinary system as it sees fit.
The project in question did not implicate criminal charges, yet the title as submitted misleadingly suggested that was the case. It's an informal anonymous reporting mechanism that results in a chat with the dean and a reminder of sexual assault laws. Yet MRAs are treating it like a greased rail to ship innocent college students to jail on anonymous false rape accusations.
The intentional flooding of the site with false rape accusations is at once baffling and sad. What a miserable little group of ignorant men.
There are actually statutes specific to rape that allow college disciplinary actions to be used as evidence in a criminal trial, so I can see their concern there.
Wow...just wow...
SnapShot
(Mirror | open source | create your own snapshots)
MRAs: A worse PR nightmare than feminists.
Correct. They can bash feminism all they want but feminists are in no way shape or form anything as awful as the mrm.
You should visit tumblrinaction. A lot of drama (usually) and clear evidence to the contrary of what you're saying
What's the 4chan connection? Where's the raid part? (The provided link isn't giving the full story which the headline alludes to.)
If more than one comment strand is relevant to the headline can we have multiple links (or screenshots) please? I'm certainly not going to go hunting around on 4chan for a relevant thread.
I looked at /b/ last night and saw they were raiding it. No screenshot, sorry. The thread is gone by now. That was about 18 hours ago.
http://i.imgur.com/nR2fZBf.jpg
Fuck those people.
Fuzzy as fuck, but that's it, thanks.
The universities should be training their staff to deal with allegations correctly rather than this stopgap fix. Like cutting your finger off to avoid having to deal with a broken nail.
Just being accused of rape can have serious consequences such as expulsion. Why would anyone want to lower the burden of proof on accusers and make it as simple as filling out a form online? I can only hope that these reports lead to the people who organized this having to defend themselves against rape accusations. Then they will see how fair the system is and how just an anonymous accusation is enough to he labelled a rapist for the rest of your life.
There is some historical perspective here with Occidental College.
>When Carly Mee, now 22, finally decided in her junior year to report a sexual assault she says happened when she was a freshman, she says she was told that she was mistaken in thinking her assailant capable of rape. "When I spoke to an administrator," she says, refusing to name the female official, "I said, 'I've been feeling really unsafe and worried that he will attack me again,' and she told me that she met with him and didn't feel like that was something he would do, so I didn't have to worry." Mee's alleged assailant, incredibly, was the same male student who attacked Capranica. He was found by Occidental, in secret proceedings, to have been responsible for attacking Mee. The unidentified male, whom Mee refuses to publicly name out of fear, was suspended but not expelled. "When I met with an administrator to ask why" he wasn't expelled, Mee says, "they said it was 'extraordinary circumstances,' and that it was a 'messy case.' "
Oh jeez, one accusation that didn't result in a conviction? We better reduce the burden of proof so this never happens again.
Occidental acknowledged that it had failed to include 24 reports during that period, bringing the total to 36 (USC had 12).
http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/07/local/la-me-college-assaults-20131008
An administrator failed to report some rape cases, so let's punish students by anonymously accusing them of rape. Checks out.
It's a weird tactic for the MRAs, that's for sure.
SRD is full of radfems. No point arguing anything here.
/u/FuturePigeon didn't say anything that wasn't factual in his/her comments. Meanwhile, I'm still waiting on /u/failearlyfail_soft to substantiate
>Just being accused of rape can have serious consequences such as expulsion.
As in just accused, not accused and with evidence.
Oh look, a rape apologist thinks people who think rape is a bad thing are rad fems. How cute.
> rape apologist
Well that came out of nowhere.
But thanks for giving a good example of what I'm talking about.
Were you really surprised that was the response?
I suppose I shouldn't be.
>SRD is full of radfems.
Lolno. At least, not if you compare us to the people featured on TiA.
I wonder how many reports they are going to fail to include this time around?
Maybe, just maybe turning your activism towards changing laws and opinions is a better idea than silencing victims.
Activism? So something like using a protest to point out unjust kangaroo court systems?
Being called into an administrator's office is a "court system."
Right...
> Just being accused of rape can have serious consequences such as expulsion.
Not through this form it can't.
Those guys are so funny, so easy to get their castrated panties in a bunch.
I wasn't aware that panties could be castrated. Neat.
Maybe he meant crotchless. Sexy.
It equates to about 3 jimmies being rustled
4chan user here, please don't lump us in with the MRAs. We just do this for shits and giggles, there's no real agenda other than the usual one of upsetting people on our end.
have you tagged as "slavery isn't bad" so you're a little more than just a 12 year old prankster
aren't you running late for 5th period algebra?
That's /b/. I'm from /pol/ and /r9k/.
So, right-wing conspiracy theorists and foreveralones. That's better how?
Yeah, pretty much. Besides, there's nothing wrong with being right-wing, and rejecting the modern emotional parasite known as a "woman". We don't like women, which is why we decided to take an opportunity to make things worse for them.
ok
>We don't like women
Well, it's nice to hear that you've come to terms with your lack of heterosexuality. It's such a shame that you've reacted in such an antagonistic manner.
Well I'm actually gay, and /pol/ used to be pretty gay-friendly (Jack Donovan's Androphilia was even on our recommended reading list) before fucking Stormfront showed up with the "MUH DEGENERACY" nonsense.
omg you think /r9k/ and /pol/ are better than /b/
Here's a hint: /a/, /b/, /v/, /g/, /pol/, and /r9k/ are all containment boards to keep shitposters (read: you) from completely ruining the other better ('better') boards.