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False accusations can be incredibly harmful and traumatizing. They can ruin lives. But you& #39;re not "allowed to talk about them" because real accusations means something worse happened.
I was having a conversation about this with a friend the other day, and he basically put his foot down and said "false accusations are too rare to worry about", even when I was discussing the act as pertaining to individuals instead of statistics.
I& #39;ve been falsely accused in the past. I& #39;m lucky that it didn& #39;t spread and was contained to a few people, but even then, I& #39;m scarred to this day. It haunts me. I have fucking nightmares about it.
While there are more real accusations and real assaults than there are false accusations, the reality is that it& #39;s traumatizing and damaging to the accused. You can lose friends, jobs, freedom, or even your fucking life. It& #39;s not a joke, and it shouldn& #39;t be handwaved away.
It& #39;s a discussion no one is willing to have. My aforementioned friend literally said "well, if it& #39;s a false accusation, that means no one got hurt" and like??? Of course someone got hurt. Someone will live the rest of their lives suffering the trauma from it.
People will tell you that it& #39;s rare and cite the FBI statistic that says "2-8% of sexual assault allegations are false", which is misleading. That only pertains to filed cases that either go to trial or the "victim" confesses to lying.
It DOES NOT account for people wrongfully convicted and sitting in prison. Various innocence organizations put the real number anywhere from 16-30%. You know what else is missing? Social "outings". Whether social media "cancellations" or social group grapevines.
You don& #39;t have to go to jail or have any police involvement for someone& #39;s life to be fucking ruined over false accusations. Just talking this shit on Twitter about people can fuck them up. Low-key, a big issue is the way people fucking dog pile.
Without dropping a name, I saw so many people saying "fuck [x]" and "I hope [x] gets banned from tournaments" and... it was a LOT of people. It turned out all of it was bullshit but so many people will never see that it was bullshit. They cancelled him so it& #39;s done.
I believe women and I support #MeToo 
https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> with everything I have, but the dogpiles need to stop. We have to realize that there are some people (perhaps even a significant amount; 16% is not insignificant, and 30% is huge) will name-drop accusations for CLOUT.
And this thread I have ranted on is an indictment on how false allegations harm the optics of actual victims sticking out. I shouldn& #39;t HAVE to talk about false accusations. But we do. We need it in the light. I& #39;m a victim of it and so are so many others.
We deserve better than to be handwaved away by people saying "oh it happens but it& #39;s not really a bad thing". Sure, no one got physically hurt, but WE have to live with the trauma and pain that comes from it. My case was small and insignificant and even I can& #39;t bury it.
We need to have this conversation and discourse. Not in opposition to movement meant to help victims of sexual assault, but in partnership. It is important for those of us supporting the movement to also be critical and harsh on those who lie about serious events.
That& #39;s the rant.
