I am, I think, mostly in agreement. That is, I think that they both abused one another, and that there are serious First Amendment considerations about the idea that she can be found liable for what she posted.
That aside, I think she lost the case the moment that recording was played where she was saying that, paraphrased, ~"yeah I abused you but if you try and say that no one will (be smart enough to) believe you." That is pure reputational poison. In order to find her innocent now, the jury have to be the contemptible pawn in her testimony. People, regardless of the law, don't work that way.
To the internet at large, they are both terrible to one another, but that's hardly the worse sin. (Oh no, he/she hits millionaires. For shame.) The reason the public relations battle became a route was that she was terrible to Player One, the observer, and that's the only sin we still punish harshly.
I agree completely, and have blogged on the same issue, which I wrote at the time Joe Biden was accused of sexual assault. http://ramcduffwhatever.blogspot.com/2020/05/on-believe-women.html Unfortunately, Biden learned nothing from that episode and supports the return in Title IX to the Obama-era rules which were deeply unfair to the accused (male or female) and were rightly changed under the Trump administration. It is the only thing that the Trump administration did that I approved of. If you are unaware of the Title IX issue, google and read "The Sex Bureaucracy" by Harvard law professors Jacob Gersen and Jeannie Suk, who show how the good intentions of the "Dear Colleague" letter of 2011 went completely awry.
I wonder how different the issue of who to believe would be if there wasn’t always a trial capturing vast media and public attention. I get why people follow trials, but it always strikes me on some level as bad for society when there’s a trial making headlines for weeks or months on end.
Whether it’s the Depp/Heard trial and its implications for MeToo, the OJ trial and its implications for race relations, or any other trial that touches on a contentious issue, I worry about the power of the court of public opinion, and the media’s role in shaping its verdict.
I am, I think, mostly in agreement. That is, I think that they both abused one another, and that there are serious First Amendment considerations about the idea that she can be found liable for what she posted.
That aside, I think she lost the case the moment that recording was played where she was saying that, paraphrased, ~"yeah I abused you but if you try and say that no one will (be smart enough to) believe you." That is pure reputational poison. In order to find her innocent now, the jury have to be the contemptible pawn in her testimony. People, regardless of the law, don't work that way.
To the internet at large, they are both terrible to one another, but that's hardly the worse sin. (Oh no, he/she hits millionaires. For shame.) The reason the public relations battle became a route was that she was terrible to Player One, the observer, and that's the only sin we still punish harshly.
I agree completely, and have blogged on the same issue, which I wrote at the time Joe Biden was accused of sexual assault. http://ramcduffwhatever.blogspot.com/2020/05/on-believe-women.html Unfortunately, Biden learned nothing from that episode and supports the return in Title IX to the Obama-era rules which were deeply unfair to the accused (male or female) and were rightly changed under the Trump administration. It is the only thing that the Trump administration did that I approved of. If you are unaware of the Title IX issue, google and read "The Sex Bureaucracy" by Harvard law professors Jacob Gersen and Jeannie Suk, who show how the good intentions of the "Dear Colleague" letter of 2011 went completely awry.
I wonder how different the issue of who to believe would be if there wasn’t always a trial capturing vast media and public attention. I get why people follow trials, but it always strikes me on some level as bad for society when there’s a trial making headlines for weeks or months on end.
Whether it’s the Depp/Heard trial and its implications for MeToo, the OJ trial and its implications for race relations, or any other trial that touches on a contentious issue, I worry about the power of the court of public opinion, and the media’s role in shaping its verdict.