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Full headline, due to Dreamwidth's inadequate subject line length: "Chris Avellone accepts 'seven-figure payment' to settle libel suit with those who accused him of sexual misconduct"
I almost made a post about this whole thing, back when Avellone initially posted his denial (a year or so after the claims against him first appeared, prior to which he'd remained mostly silent about the matter), but didn't.
Now, though, I'm posting about it. And... all I'm going to say, really, is that this sadly shows why one actually should not always simply knee-jerk #BelieveWomen when claims of sexual misconduct like this come to light. Sure, granted, in 99.9% of the cases, it turns out to be correct to #BelieveWomen about these things, most assuredly. But then, we have the .1% cases like this, in which it turns out that the women were just straight up lying about the whole thing, and it turns out that the man in the situation was unjustifiably dragged through the mud in the "trial by media" by the "court of public opinion."
It's fine and correct and good to not automatically knee-jerk assume that women coming forward with claims of sexual misconduct are lying about it, for whatever reasons. That's what #BelieveWomen is about. However, it's also fine and correct and good to not automatically knee-jerk assume that all women coming forward with claims of sexual misconduct are telling the truth about it, either. The problem here is with the word "assume." Each case is going to be unique. My own, personal stance is that it's really not any of my fucking business, for the most part, because I don't have all the facts. But because actually coming out and saying that is too dangerously close to the alt-right/Irredeemably Toxic Shithole playbook of invariably screeching "nO pRoOf!!1!11!!!"/"BuT bUt BuT wHeRe'S tHe EvIdEnCe?!?!?!?!" whenever such stories come up, I usually opt to simply keep my mouth shut entirely on the topic. The rare exceptions being extraordinary cases like this one here, or, to go in the other direction, ones like that of Vic Mignogna where his legal "defense" (or, rather, to be more accurate, his legal "offensive" attempt to silence his accusers) was such a clowncar trainwreck that I couldn't help but comment on it.
I almost made a post about this whole thing, back when Avellone initially posted his denial (a year or so after the claims against him first appeared, prior to which he'd remained mostly silent about the matter), but didn't.
Now, though, I'm posting about it. And... all I'm going to say, really, is that this sadly shows why one actually should not always simply knee-jerk #BelieveWomen when claims of sexual misconduct like this come to light. Sure, granted, in 99.9% of the cases, it turns out to be correct to #BelieveWomen about these things, most assuredly. But then, we have the .1% cases like this, in which it turns out that the women were just straight up lying about the whole thing, and it turns out that the man in the situation was unjustifiably dragged through the mud in the "trial by media" by the "court of public opinion."
It's fine and correct and good to not automatically knee-jerk assume that women coming forward with claims of sexual misconduct are lying about it, for whatever reasons. That's what #BelieveWomen is about. However, it's also fine and correct and good to not automatically knee-jerk assume that all women coming forward with claims of sexual misconduct are telling the truth about it, either. The problem here is with the word "assume." Each case is going to be unique. My own, personal stance is that it's really not any of my fucking business, for the most part, because I don't have all the facts. But because actually coming out and saying that is too dangerously close to the alt-right/Irredeemably Toxic Shithole playbook of invariably screeching "nO pRoOf!!1!11!!!"/"BuT bUt BuT wHeRe'S tHe EvIdEnCe?!?!?!?!" whenever such stories come up, I usually opt to simply keep my mouth shut entirely on the topic. The rare exceptions being extraordinary cases like this one here, or, to go in the other direction, ones like that of Vic Mignogna where his legal "defense" (or, rather, to be more accurate, his legal "offensive" attempt to silence his accusers) was such a clowncar trainwreck that I couldn't help but comment on it.
