Monday, November 14, 2011

Proof - what it is and what it isn't...

Let's face it, on YouTube accusations are thrown around easily by many people. It appears sometimes that just repeating an accusation over and over from various sock accounts as well as having your friends echo you will make it appear more true, when in fact it does not. One may remember that any positive claim about the misdeeds of another requires for the accuser to provide the proof and evidence.

Proper examples of such have been seen when straightdope and various other users have confronted Brett Keane. His plagiarism for example has been proven by comparing his works (from his original videos/audios) with the works of the actual authors. Comments he denies having made were screen captured and shown in full context, the "wife beating incident" was documented in form of filed police reports which made it into the public domain as well as his own wife making a video about the incident back then. While this may not be proof that he is a wife beater, since there is a possibility his wife is falsely accusing him, it is rather strange that they are still together, now both denying it ever happened, coming up with silly excuses.

However, there has been another group of people who love throwing around accusations, and what they claim as proof is nothing but statements from either their own sock accounts or their own friends. When you make the claim that someone drained a whole lot of money out of another person based on nothing but a statement from the person who presents themselves as the victim, you can't exactly present the perceived victim's statement as proof. What would be proof? Transfer slips for example. Screenshots of the demand for money. If you can't provide either, chances are you are dealing with a baseless accusation.

The same goes for interpreting a whole different meaning into something someone says. It doesn't matter how you perceive something, or more precisely, how you would like others to perceive what was said. You will never know the actual intention of the person who made a statement, no matter how much you try to convince others that you DO know. What you CAN do is take the statement at face value. If someone feels harassed by you and warns you that if you continue, they will forward all the information you have provided them with in regards to your person to the appropriate authorities, that is exactly what it means. In short: "Leave me alone, or I will file a police report." Interpreting a "I have shit on you, and I will make your personal life public" into such a statement is absolutely ridiculous, especially when you then look at the fact that a report was actually filed, in other words, the original threat, the face value statement, was followed through.

When you are asked to provide proof for your accusations, it is not just silly, but completely stupid, to refer to screenshots of statements made by people about the person you are accusing, especially if a large amount of these people are not actual people but sock accounts of one and the same person, or if these people have some other agenda to discredit that person. What counts are hard facts and solid evidence. If you can't provide anything but hearsay, chances are you are simply a vindictive troll cunt. Especially when you are offered a fair debate with a completely unbiased moderator by the person you accuse, but keep dodging out of it. It sure shows a lot about you, when you feel like you can't provide anything of substance on neutral grounds.

So before you make accusations, make sure you have actual evidence. Else you may just end up looking really fucking stupid.

You know who you are!