false accusation panic
on the moral panic of false accusations, and the myth of the false accuser.
listen instead:
In July, a story was posted by journalist Lisa Noelle Voldeng where she interviewed a man named Sascha Riley. In it are audio recordings of his accusations of child trafficking, rape, murder, and assault by members of Epstein’s circle. The main perpetrator within Sascha’s stories is Donald Trump.
Note: this piece has nothing to do with Sascha’s allegations being true or not. This is not about the credibility of the journalist who posted or Sascha’s credibility. This story sparked reactions that highlight an issue in how we respond to public allegations of sexual violence. This is most applicable to public accusations of public figures. Still, this can, and often does, occur when an allegation reaches mainstream media or gains traction locally.
In light of allegations he has made, little time was wasted to question and discredit timelines and individual claims of Sascha Riley. This was done by people who claim to be victim advocates and have reported on the Epstein files many times over.
I want to make something very clear: this is not groundbreaking. Nothing they are doing is something that has not been done to every single public accuser. There is nothing wrong with hoping for evidence in a claim. However, there is absolutely no reason to post about it. There is no reason to pick an alleged victim’s story apart.
There is no obligation to make uncertainty known, this is patriarchy convincing people that they need to ensure all victims stories are perfectly on the up and up to be credible. To set themselves apart lest it be found untrue, because then they’re just like those mean feminists who try to ruin men’s lives.
False accusations do not harm victims the way rape culture claims. This is propaganda designed to intimidate victims with the threat of being labeled a false accuser and having their story dismissed. If everyone is hyper aware of a possible false accusation, every single accusation will be picked apart until the end of time, and that is the point. False accusations still land between 2-8% of reports, and it is most likely that this number is actually below 2%.
What actually harms victims is public discrediting or questioning of allegations before they’ve even had a chance to breathe. People who have nothing to do with the case, have no legal background or relevance to the case, and those who feel entitled to another person’s story sowing doubt harms every victim out there.
It may seem silly to say that we shouldn’t discuss allegations of sexual violence, but that is only because we have been told that we hold the right to do so. It is important to note that this phenomenon does not exist with other violent crimes such as robberies, beatings, and homicides (unless it’s a femicide). This is something that only happens when the crime is one that disproportionately effects women. Intimate partner violence and sexual violence are the two where you will see people jumping at the opportunity to discredit a victim and poke holes in their story.
I have already been told this is “silencing” people and quite frankly, oh well. You are not entitled to sharing your own thoughts on someone’s story of sexual abuse.
When defending their right to play detective with someone’s story, I have been told that it’s “common” for a false claim to be thrown into the mix to discredit other victims of the same perpetrator, but I’d like examples. Victims are discredited whether they report alone or 20+ victims have come forward. Diddy, who had accusers that the public decided were false, was let off anyway because no one wanted to believe Cassie (the star witness) was a victim of sex trafficking. Trump has been accused of sexual impropriety by 26 separate women as well as his ties to child rape within the Epstein files, and he is still president. Weinstein had victim testimony dismissed because there were “too many of them.” It does not fucking matter at all.
It is possible to amplify a story without digging to prove or disprove it. Alternatively, it’s okay to stay out of it.
Now, more files have been released. The stories mirror the accusations made by Riley, which were initially dismissed by the aforementioned actors as “clearly conspiracy” or outlandish. They’ve also given new information for timelines that were used to dismiss Riley’s claims. Again, this is all theory, just like the posts declaring Riley must be lying. It doesn’t matter now because these declarations are already out there, they can’t be taken back, which is exactly the problem.
There’s a popular saying, “I would rather support a possible liar than a rapist” and this feels even more urgent when the accused is a known rapist. False accusation panic leads to people decrying an accuser of someone we already know is a rapist, who is not being investigated nor anywhere near being charged, all in the name of purity testing one of many accusers.
Epstein and his associates played a part in the latest round of false accusation panic, the #MeToo movement. Correspondence shows Epstein discussing the latest accusations with associates, hinting at pulling accused men into his closer circle, and multiple men who faced allegations reaching out to Epstein for help.
“The most extensive emailed advice seems to be to physicist Lawrence Krauss. When Krauss was contacted by journalist Peter Aldhous for comment on a BuzzFeed story about sexual harassment allegations, he forwarded the email to Epstein and repeatedly asked him for advice about how to handle Aldhous. (Krauss strenuously denies the allegations against him, and says he “sought out advice from essentially everyone I knew, including my convicted pedophile friend”.)” Emphasis mine.
Knowing the hand elite men have played in anti-trans hate, sites like 4chan and reddit, and “anti-woke” propaganda, it’s not a stretch to draw attention to the way they’re able to skirt accountability for sexual misconduct and manipulate public perception. It is very likely that average people, even those who claim to be victims’ advocates, are parroting ideas put into their heads by pedophile billionaires.
Collectively, we need to do better for survivors. Whether you are a survivor yourself or an advocate, we need to keep those who are coming forward safe. There is no time to succumb to false accusation panic when none of us are guaranteed justice and statistically, unlikely to get it.
I would rather cut my hands off than write a think piece on why a potential victim is lying. I’d rather believe a possible liar than a rapist. I’d rather say nothing than harm survivors and all victims to come because I was desperate to set myself apart from those mean, nasty, evil feminists: read, women.
The urgency with which people guard against the possibility of a false accusation is almost touching. If only that energy were applied to the statistically far more common reality of sexual violence itself.
I recently saw someone express doubt that women on Substack were having deepfake porn made from their pictures because those making that claim had not produced evidence. It wasn’t even about any specific accusation, just about acknowledging the significance of the problem. This was a woman who otherwise recognized the trauma of receiving this type of abuse.