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foldr06/16/20252 repliesview on HN

We're allowed to form judgments about people based on evidence that wouldn't be sufficient to convict them of a crime. The consequences of me forming the opinion that this guy is a domestic abuser are far lower than the consequences of a court doing so. And of course, even courts use a much lower evidential standard than 'innocent until proven guilty' when deciding civil cases. Making a derogatory comment about someone on the internet is much more analogous to a civil court finding against the plaintiff than it is to a criminal court giving someone a jail sentence.

In any case, HN is very selective about this high evidential standard. People will make a lot of effort to give probable domestic abusers the benefit of the doubt, but pick one of HN's official enemies and suddenly any little scrap of evidence is considered quite sufficient!


Replies

catigula06/16/2025

I agree with this sentiment but I'm also willing to explore/consider the possibility that "innocent until proven guilty" isn't strictly only useful as an esoteric legal construct, but a philosophy that could potentially have applicability to an individual's worldview.

That being said I wouldn't have much patience for a "merely" accused murderer or child predator in my personal life, just as I also don't have much patience for a doctor who refuses to prescribe me antibiotics because the chance they could help me is "only" 1%. I don't really care that it's socially irresponsible when it comes to my personal assessment of risk.

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eru06/16/2025

Yes, different fora have different standards of evidence. That's only normal.

Civil cases are probably the best (counter) example to bring up, because they also involve a judge and lawyers etc.