When I was in university, there was a women's bathroom in one of the buildings that was noted to have a list of alleged rapists (students and professors) written on the walls. The cleaners intentionally never removed it.

Poe's Law, this is totally screwing with my brain, this IS satire right? This is maybe the worst based-on-a-true story I've ever seen, exceptional in the low quality of its writing.

Am I biting the onion here? This is for laughs right?

Oh the humanity!!!!!!!!!!!!

They are actually circulated among victims and their friends, with a lot of validation of repeat offenders. So there is a lot of informal collective information gathering and confirmation.

They are lists of men to avoid dating or not trust them to buy you a drink.

And the lists are a reaction to the difficulty of holding them accountable. Universities have been bad about punishing their students for criminal behaviour, because they want their tuition, don't want to offend their wealthy alumni parents, and have a misguided fear of ruining the lives of relatively young people (even if they are legally adults).

Unfortunately some of the people who get away with abusing their fellow students will go on abusing their colleagues the rest of their lives.

So if you want to keep people from being unfairly put on these anonymous lists, then you need to make these lists unnecessary.

I agree with the utility, practicality and necessity of informal lists. Mocking someone who was falsely included on one of them and made to experience consequences is an ugly thing to do.

We've had centuries of experience on this topic - retaliation should follow from evidence. That evidence should be challenged and held to consistent fair standards. Laughing at people condemned by gossip is unfair.

People have a right to share information with each other about abusive people or places who should be avoided.

The lists could be campus rapists, or bad drunks, toxic places to work, or a list of towns or businesses that aren't safe for black or queer folk to visit.

Most of these informal lists have been around for decades. For some people, these lists help them to avoid some dangerous people or places.

Are there some people in these lists who don't deserve to be? Probably.

But how are you going to regulate it? It's speech after all.

If you aren't mocking someone, I would advise that you contain your enthusiasm to a single exclamation mark.

But anyone who is angered by the existence of these lists because someone might not deserve to be on them.... is worth mocking.

Of all the injustices committed by governments and corporations and even some wealthy people, that ranks pretty low.

That people need to share a secret list of powerful members of parliament who have a history of abusing their colleagues isn't what makes you angry?

It doesn't require rigid structures. Whisper networks exist in every community. Jo Freeman very famously discussed them in The Tyranny of Structurelessness (https://www.jofreeman.com/joreen/tyranny.htm).

We also should not forget that these are political representatives - they should absolutely be held to a higher standard than everyone else. Because if we don't then we either abandon pro-social behavior as a desirable trait or the belief that elections should help to select people who are more capable by any standard.

Hmmm

This news it very relevant because still in 2022 sexual misconduct by men in positions of power seems to be a huge issue stil.

I mean, doesn’t it say something about the current state of things if the bloody parliament is not safe for women?

I have no illusions about how it is for women to work in sv for all the tech bro companies. Uber had some very public history on this. This topic is unfortunately as relevant as ever.

> if left unchecked

This obviously represents an error on how abuse is handled in these power structures.

What baffles me the most, is that this list in particular is not only shared between staff or subordinates, but concerns colleagues. It seems that women feel that they cannot speak out against such forms of potential abuse because they fear they will get themself axed, even if the alleged abuser is power-wise on the same level.

This is very concerning to hear, but frankly not surprising if you speak with any woman that operates in any kind of hierarchy, be it corporate or otherwise.

But if the person really is a rapist or whatever, they know how to navigate the system because they’ve been spoken out against before - they’ll know exactly how to attack and destroy your reputation.

Game theory leans toward whispering to protect yourself and others without getting destroyed.