I thought, that we as society surrender our right to judge and punish criminal matters to the court, in exchange for a fair trial for each and everyone of us.

Just the punishing is reserved for the legal system.

For instance, at least in the US, we have pretty strong free speech laws, so you can publicly state opinions about almost anything, such things aren't reserved for courts.

I'm by no way a lawyer, but don't you have libel laws? I thought that's why newspapers use allegedly when reporting on such incidents.

Truth is an affirmative defense against a libel claim.

Sure, we have libel laws.

And you can be sure that The Verge had a lawyer look at this piece.

Only a court can order someone incarcerated or stripped of their assets. As an individual you're perfectly free to shun someone who you think is guilty of atrocious behavior even if they haven't been convicted.

No. We give up the right to use violence to the court system. Not justice in general. Ruining a rapist's reputation is a perfectly fine way to achieve justice, if that's what the victim desires.

Other ways to achieve justice outside the court system include protests, strikes, civil disobedience and so forth.

I don't think victims' desires are paramount in any way, regarding the perpetrator, other than their security and privacy. Some victims desire retribution. Others want to extend forgiveness. Neither of these things should be relevant to the criminal justice system.

Of course it is relevant. Cases tend to get much weaker if the victim refuses to testify.

The problem is that while I can admit that most of the victims are indeed victims. It is also possible that some might be accused infairly or inaccurately.So I would not really call it a fine way.

The general notion of "innocent until proven guilty" is simplistic even when applied to just the legal system. Even in criminal court you only have to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. You do not have to "prove" guilt to the same degree of confidence as, say, the Higgs boson.

This means that a small number of innocent people are convicted every year. This is unfortunate, but less bad than the alternative — the only way to guarantee no false positives is to never convict anyone.

The legal system, like any other justice system, is about finding an appropriate balance between false negatives and false positives.

when we talk about proven in the empiric sense a margin of error is always expected. but what "innocent until proven guilty" guarantees is that best efforts were made to make sure that someone is really guilty. Trial by social media cannot reasonably offer such guarantees.

Also, I presume you would agree that the police and by extension the court have better means than your average newspaper for determining guilt.

While the legal system might have more power than the average newspaper, that doesn't mean that it is more effective at determining guilt.

I was raped 10 years ago when I was a teen. There is no evidence of the crime. No court is going to convict my rapist.

cf. libel and slander, and consider that in the United States and many (but not all) societies, a person accused of a crime is to be considered innocent (in a legal context) until found guilty in a court of law (by jury or bench trial).

Truth is the gold standard defense against slander and libel.

So if someone is raped, they are pretty safe calling the attacker a rapist, they just can't call them a convicted rapist until a court has decided that.

It's not always safe. I sympathize with real victims, but some people abuse the principle to influence public opinion in hopes of driving things toward a big monetary settlement in civil court. A personal friend was falsely accused of sexually abusing a minor, really nasty accusations, changed his life forever even though he was/is innocent. An organization that champions the victims of such crimes went all out, and together with the alleged victim's parents slimed him hard, publicly and repeatedly, over a year+ while the thing wound its way through the courts; they were very careful to avoid use of the word "convicted." The press gave the slimeballs all sorts of coverage, as it was a noteworthy case. The criminal case was tossed, with harsh words from the judge for the prosecution, the alleged victim's civil case evaporated, and my friend sued the slimeballs in federal court. The result was the utter obliteration of the organization that slimed him, they are now defunct for all intents and purposes. My friend's suit made claims of injury by libel and slander, and conspiracy to commit the same.

What does your comment have to do with So if someone is raped,, which is what I said?

Looking at it from a 3rd party's point of view, the if is very much in question. So, flipping it around, though this may sound cynical, I would caution anyone about making what are essentially public accusations. They had better be prepared for a legal backlash, and they had better have bulletproof evidence.

I spoke (politely) with the guy who ran the organization that publicly went after my friend — I think he genuinely considered what he was doing to be legally safe, and I also think he was convinced my friend was guilty. His livelihood is now in tatters.

I still don't understand why you felt the need to reply about this to my comment about victims. I wasn't talking about false accusations or third parties, and it isn't a long or complicated comment.

I intended my reply as a pointed cautionary tale — understanding full well you had in mind true victims — for those who may misunderstand what's involved and what's at stake regarding both accused and accuser and so may pursue a regrettable course. Sadly, from a 3rd party's point of view, it's difficult today to distinguish true victims from false accusers.

> and they had better have bulletproof evidence

No you don't need that. The OTHER party needs to have bulletproof evidence, because the accuser is innocent until proven guilty.

If something is true, then you should never ever ever be afraid to say the truth. Go public with your true accusations, and then force the other side to sue you.

Because if you are telling the truth, then you will win, because the other side can't have evidence that you are lying, because the evidence doesn't exist.

It is basically impossible to get in legal trouble for libel, if you know that what you are saying is true.

You are innocent of libel and slander until proven guilt.

Innocent until proven guilt works both ways.

If someone publicly accusing another person of a crime, the accuser is innocent of slander and libel unless you 100% prove that they are being malicious.

It is completely within your right to show evidence to the world and someone should not ever get in trouble with the law if everything that they have presented is true.

The only way you can convict someone of slander is if you prove that they were lying. Good luck doing that, because you almost certainly won't succeed.

See my reply above.

.

The victim had presumably considered the trade-offs and made an appropriate choice. It is no one else's position to judge them.

In the US, truth is an absolute defense against libel and slander.