In Chatlogs, Celebrated Hacker and Activist Confesses Countless Sexual Assaults
Several comments in this thread seem to purport that we shouldn&#x27;t say or assume anything about the truth of the matter until he is proven guilty in a court of law.<p>That&#x27;s a really ridiculous standard, for a few reasons:<p>- The standard of proof in a criminal trial is &quot;beyond a reasonable doubt&quot;, which is a very high bar to meet. (FWIW, I think it meets it in this case). We made it that high because  <i>we would rather a guilty person walk free</i> than put an innocent person in jail. The costs of you and I incorrectly choosing not to associate with someone are far lower. There are other standards for guilt in other cases, such as &quot;more probable than not&quot; in civil trials.<p>- A prosecutor may believe a crime has occurred but decline to bring a case for a number of reasons (limited budget, jurisdiction, statute of limitations, difficulty or unreliability of evidence, because they think they don&#x27;t have a good chance to win)<p>- We make decisions all the time about who we&#x27;ll partner with, who we hire, who we fire, based on standards far lower than this. In general it&#x27;s not a crime to be an asshole but you&#x27;d never say I should wait until it&#x27;s proven in court before deciding not to hire one.<p>There&#x27;s more than enough evidence about this person specifically, and in most cases, for me&#x2F;you to feel fine never associating with this person, or working with an organization he&#x27;s involved with, ever again, even if a court of law never gets involved.