In 1788 a man was jailed for 6 years despite having an alibi for being the 'London Monster'. There were 50 reports, with women fabricating stories, false accusations, even injuring themselves. Historians believe the monster was entirely made-up hysteria. False accusations are not just a modern thing

Starmind0 · 2020-09-19T12:35:30+00:00

I hate it when people treat false accusations and any of the privilges women have to day as "modern things". They're not. Women have had those privileges centuries ago.

vestrise · 2020-09-19T15:46:30+00:00

"False accusations are not just a modern thing"

I mean, plenty of black men lost their lives due to white women falsely accusing them back during the Jim Crow era. I've never understood why the wokesters never got on board with that one. You'd think it would be the perfect intersection of race, privilege, and bias. But it's men, so fuck 'em I guess.

SirYouAreIncorrect · 2020-09-19T19:17:52+00:00

One of the reasons that number of accusers should not be a factor on is the accusation is factual, I dont know how many times I have heard people say something to the effect of "well 15 women have come forward so the allegation must be true"...

does not matter if it 1 allegation or 100, each allegation should be investigated on its own merits in isolation of the others and proven on their own factual basis.

RyansPutter · 2020-09-19T18:28:27+00:00

Of course they aren't a modern thing. There's one in Genesis, where Joseph is falsely accused by Potiphar's wife after he rebuffs her sexual advances.

hacker4chanUwU · 2020-09-19T09:27:18+00:00

A woman simply cannot stand for another woman getting attention; hence, she must concoct her own lies to be included in whatever mass hysteria is currently popular.

N.B. The word "hysteria" is comes from the Greek word for "uterus". Think about that for a moment.

Amazing_Rope_Police · 2020-09-19T19:45:20+00:00

One thing I want to mention - while I know prison back then was harsher than today, it speaks volumes about how fucked up our view of justice is that a suspected serial rapist was given 6 years. Apparently people back then thought 6 years in prison was a fitting punishment for a monster. Nowadays you can get more for weed possession in many countries. This should tell us something. I know that the rehabilitation vs punishment topic is hot enough as it is, but nobody seems to talk about the fact that even in more moderate European countries people are locked away for INCREDIBLY long time, when compared to what was historically accepted. This is simply put, inhumane. There's no practical reason to send someone to prison for 29 years for rape, for example. Yes, rape is horrible, but 20 years is effectively a lifetime. 20 years is not that different from a life sentence. Don't you guys think that we as a society should show compassion to the guilty, simply because we're supposed to be better than them? Vindictiveness doesn't help anyone.

Svenskbtch · 2020-09-21T10:59:19+00:00

I think many would contend false accusations are also what caused the wave of lynchings in the first half of the last century.

But class and race have, I think, been equally important. I would surmise that most cases of ("successful") false accusations involved accusers that enjoyed a higher social status than the accused.

Am I wrong about that? Would love to know.

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