
How to avoid supporting sexual predators - zdw
https://blog.valerieaurora.org/2019/08/23/how-to-avoid-supporting-sexual-predators/
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csense
Sexual predators are bad. I think we can all agree on that. But I have real
problems with this author's position.

If you blacklist someone based on allegations someone posted on the Internet,
how's the guy (or gal) supposed to clear their name if they didn't do it?

Has it never crossed your mind that there are a number of reasons a person
might make or spread false allegations, especially against company leaders?
And especially if there are people like you, who seem quite willing to believe
any allegation, and inflict what punishment they can, if it comes up in a
Google search?

Also, the author doesn't really understand how things like equity, board
seats, and voting rights work. Those aren't things a company can just take
away from its owners, even when those owners are revealed to be sexual
predators. They're legal obligations the company's locked into. It's _much_
easier for a company to fire its CEO than it is for the company to take away
his (or anybody's) shares.

The company can't just take away a shareholder's stock even if that
shareholder's, say, _criminally convicted of raping dozens of people_. That
stock might be seized if it was the proceeds of the crime, or to pay things
like fines, attorney's fees, court-ordered restitution to victims, etc. _But
that 's not the company's call_. Whether that happens -- whether it even _can_
happen in a given situation -- is a decision that's made by the laws and
courts. Which _do_ have plenty of experience dealing with false allegations,
and the know-how and resources to thoroughly investigate claims.

The legal system definitely has its own rough edges and doesn't always work
perfectly. But it seems a whole lot fairer than just using whatever shows up
when you Google someone's name when you're trying to answer a question like,
"Okay, should we as a society try to ruin this guy's life?"

