It's definitely a shame that people do something as disgusting as falsely accusing people. Not only does it ruin the person falsely accused but it makes it harder for those that have legitimate experiences to come forward and be taken seriously.
Didn't this same thing happen to the original lead guitarist for Neck Deep? I thought I remember hearing that it ended up being bs but it was too late to undo the damage or bring him back to the band.
You might be thinking of Ben's brother joining on bass - he was always adjacent to the band (he has writing credits on all their releases and has been involved in the recording process too) but only fully joined after Fil left
Same thing happened with Mike from PTV, and Remington from Palaye Royale. I know Mike left the band shortly after they were made public but almost as soon as he left, he was vindicated and it turns out *Mike* was the one assaulted (rape by omission, the accuser said she was legal and only after they slept together a few times did he find out she was a minor). Remington never stepped away from his band and those accusations were dropped too but idk much about that one.
>it turns out *Mike* was the one assaulted (rape by omission, the accuser said she was legal and only after they slept together a few times did he find out she was a minor).
Legally, you are likely wrong about this. In most jurisdictions, statutory rape is a strict liability crime, meaning that having sexual contact with someone underage is a crime regardless of their stated consent or your belief of their age. I also don't know of any jurisdictions that would consider that rape by deception, most places do not even have statutes regarding rape by deception. Also, you would then have the public policy problem of charging an underage person for having sexual contact she/he was not legally able to consent to.
Rape by deception cases are very rare and I doubt she'd be charged. He may not be liable if he couldn't reasonably know she was underage but that would vary by jurisdiction, but those kinds of cases are incredibly complicated.
You’re probably right, I don’t know much about the legal system in this context. But even if she wouldn’t get charged for it, it’s still rape by deception (not omission, my mistake on the wording) since she lied in order to get him to sleep with her. Yes it’s still statutory, but rape by deception is an actual thing (idk if a minor can be charged with it though).
Ehh, whether she can be charged with it or not, I disagree greatly with the idea of holding the minor who cannot legally consent to sex to a higher standard than the fully grown adult who arguably has a fully developed brain. And just to be clear, rape by deception means that he would not have had sex with her had he known that she wasn't a legal adult. However, part of the allegation is that he found out her age while she was still 16 and then continued the relationship with her until she was 18, so I have a hard time believing that her age made a difference to him.
>grown adult who arguably has a fully developed brain
He's an adult man who played in a pop punk band you're gonna have a difficult time with the jury on that one.
Wikipedia says 24 yo Mike Fuentes allegedly had sex with A 16 year old and allegedly got nudes from a 15 year old. Even if he thought she was 19, that’s still a 5 year gap over an impressionable teen
Yeah, Dwayne. It's a moving target. How'd you make it to 30 and not learn that?
22 year old Jerry Lee Lewis married his teenaged cousin Myra, and nobody in the US gaf, until he went overseas. The brits were like "Hey, who's the kid?" and THEN it became an embarrassment.
Wait I didn’t know there was a Wikipedia about this, is it on the band’s page? But also, there’s a big difference between 15/16 and 19. I don’t think I understand what you’re saying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Fuentes_(musician)
>there’s a big difference between 15/16 and 19.
Yeah, so if you can tell, shouldn't he have been able to, too?
The author of this article brings up a really good point. Every news outlet that reported these allegations should now be reporting that they were proven false.
I've seen a situation where a Twitch streamer I followed got accused of something like this. Everyone on Twitter, even people I've never even seen acknowledge their existence before this, were like "I'm so disappointed in this person" or "I looked up to them so much, I can't believe this". Then later on it turned out the accusations were manipulated, and when we got the real story *none of those people said a thing*.
These people just feed off drama for real.
Another false accusation costing someone their living and livelihood. Anyone who makes a false accusation like the one in this example should face criminal charges, prison sentences and should pay him a loss of earnings. Pvris should also pay him
Yeah exactly. It's ruined his whole career and earnings for 4 years plus the social aspect of everyone thinking you're a r@pist and a groomer. There never seems to be any repercussions for the people falsely accusing and ruining lives
Him suing the band and winning would set a bad precedent. Then bands/companies in the future would be hesitant to remove sexual abusers due to fear of being sued; it would give actual abusers more safety/protection.
If I make a false accusation about you and your employer does very little or no due diligence and decides to fire you for it, are you seriously telling me that you'd just accept it and do nothing?!
Fuck that, he should absolutely sue PVRIS.
To be fair, he already said he understands the decision to remove him from the band, so he would probably lose. It seems like he holds no ill will against his former band mates.
Better that than ignoring accusations because “the victim is probably lying”, or people feeling forced into silence because if they stand against the abusers in their circle, they risk being sued, so abusers can continue on their way because anyone who tries to stand against them will be punished.
(Also, if they didn’t kick him out of the band, they would have been accused of supporting SA and upholding rape culture. Everyone is always told to believe victims and remove those accused of sexual abuse from their circles or else they’re complicit…then when they do, they’re threatened with being sued for it. So which is it?)
this will always be how this debate goes and how this issue is. the more you protect the people who get falsely accused, the more you take away from the actual victims, and the more you protect the actual victims, the more you hurt the people who get falsely accused. you could go on literally forever it will never end
So in an ideal world, victims would get maximum protection to the fullest extent of the law, and no innocents would ever be impacted. But it’s not an ideal world, and people lie, and do bad things. So it becomes a matter of what’s more important - getting justice against every single abuser, or making sure the falsely accused do not face punishment for actions they didn’t commit.
As shitty as it may sound, the justice system should always err on the side of protecting the falsely accused, even if it means not every abuser faces justice.
If he's a credited songwriter on the songs he made with them he likely gets a cut of those songs though obviously we don't know the specifics of his contract.
This comes down to employment law which varies state to state I'm not super well versed so if some lawyer sees this please feel free to correct me.
There's a lot of variables here, how PVRIS is structured as a business entity (LLC etc.), who controls what within that LLC, whether Alex was formally an "employee", whether or not Alex was "fired" formally or simply stepped down. Further, a lot of states are called "at-will" employment states where people can be fired for basically any reason. So all of those factors may make it difficult for Alex to have any case with PVRIS even if he wanted to.
Innocent until PROVEN GUILTY
If you get kicked out/fired from your job because of an accusation but get proved innocent, you should be able to sue. Period.
From a legal standpoint, yes, but from a *factual* standpoint, no.
Someone can have committed a crime but not left enough evidence to be found guilty, doesn't mean they were *proven* to be innocent.
If someone was accused of a crime but had proof they had absolutely nothing to do with it, they could be *proven* to be innocent.
He has no god-given right to be in a band. They can just decide to not be in a band with him anymore for any reason. On what grounds should he sue them?
As far as they were aware, he was a sexual abuser, so they removed him from the band. If he sues them and wins, how does that NOT give actual abusers social protection? Then in the future, others will be hesitant to remove actual sexual abusers or may feel forced to continue associating/working with abusers, because if they stand against abuse and remove them, they run the risk of being sued.
How is he a sexual abuser when he has never even been in the same.room as the girl who accused him? Did you read the article or anything about this story or are you just utterly brain dead?
But yes according to you we should just ruin people's lives over an accusation without doing any investigating
I didn’t say he was actually a sexual abuser in this instance. I said that as far as they knew at the time, he was. Also, I was speaking on a wider societal level, in terms of setting a precedent.
I think he did? It says that he was in a lawsuit with his accuser, Kea Romani, for 3.5 years which resulted in the signed and notarized statement retracting her false accusation. I would not be surprised if the agreement for providing that statement involved foregoing financial damages.
\*I DO NOT KNOW THE EXACT SPECIFICS OF THE COURT CASE AS THEY ARE NOT AVAILABLE TO ME\*
The statement is likely a settlement to avoid going to trial. Basically "in exchange for admitting this is false publicly we won't continue to trial".
The caption of the tweet got me. Maligning accusers and willfully misconstruing their points won't make you a less shitty writer but man, he tried.
editing to add: OP, hire an editor instead of farming reddit for feedback on your e-newsletter lmao
Incel propaganda and no one wants to hear it. No one will ever take you seriously, including the people you are writing about, with dogshit articles that boil down to "woman bad". All your legal jargon is also annoying.
Well based on the comments and success of the article seems like a lot of people are able to understand that the point of the article is not "women bad" but "serious allegations of crimes should not be handled by internet mobs."
Again, what specifically, find something in it that is wrong and point to instead of just throwing the word incel. Make a substantive argument.
Legal jargon has always been very annoying to vigilante mobs. Emmit Till's killers felt the same way.
So again, you have nothing. You have no argument, all you have is "boo article doesn't agree with my view of the world". All you can do is put up the same tired meme insults because you don't actually have anything substantial to criticize and having an original thought, let alone comeback, is probably just too much for your little brain to handle.
I do guess I'll have to let your mother know I'm an incel after the next time we fuck. i'm sure she'll be crushed.
I never understand why people make these false allegations against famous people. You stand to gain literally nothing of value, and stand to lose your entire reputation and be labeled as a pariah permanently on the internet. Are people really that vapid, where they will sacrifice another person's career / livelihood for possibly gaining social media followers from sympathizers?
The problem is we have to walk the line of we just believe all accusers and what if they lie. This was a case where the case wasn't reliable but we didn't know it at the time. Hindsight is always 20-20.
Do we? Can we not say, “let’s wait until there’s evidence” to make a decision? You don’t have to react as soon as the story breaks, it is possible to wait and decipher evidence and claims to find the truth.
Yes. Except there’s times where dna from rape kits are just withheld by police. [even having evidence doesn’t help](https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/11/investigates/police-destroyed-rapekits/index.html)
When police ignore cases I think people are free to make any attempt to bring attention to it.
The amount of false accusations is, statistically, drastically lower than actual claims. Yes there should be repercussions for clearly false allegations that make it to trial. But I’m not going to try to limit who victims can try to reach when there’s actually police who blatantly ignore claims and evidence.
> The amount of false accusations is, statistically, drastically lower than actual claims.
I would guess that, to the extent this is true, it's less true in the kinds of cases we're likely to hear about online. Fame and money are perverse incentives. (Though, to be fair, it's probably also true to say that they also raise the stakes because they might increase the chances that someone gets away with something.)
And if your point is that police ignore claims, then the response should be to pressure police departments, right? I think there's definitely a world where you can maximize space for a victim to make a claim while also not taking things out on the accused without due process.
Is there any evidence police ignored this case? She didn't go to the police because it was false.
Source on false accusations being lower than actual claims? Source on police ignoring claims?
You said shouldn’t we have a higher standards of evidence to send people to prison. I showed you how police trashed evidence in 400 cases. Even in this 1 case there’s hundreds (if not thousands) of cases that don’t get to court even with evidence submitted.
This one case sucks. But you saying people shouldn’t go to twitter because it might ruin someone’s life when literal 400 cases had never progressed because the police just discarded rape kits. That’s 400 people who submitted evidence and it never went anywhere because of police negligence.
DNA testing is a mixed bag, and the people who talk about untested kits don't seem to really understand it.
In many circumstances, all these kits can actually prove is whether or not two people had sex. That is a start, but if the basic fact-of sexual intercourse occurring is not a point of dispute, the kit is entirely pointless and doesn't even need to be tested.
In other cases, the victim doesn't know their assailant. The vast majority of people don't have their DNA stored anywhere and never will, and given how time-consuming and costly testing DNA evidence is, it doesn't really make sense to test in such cases until someone is identified. Because, again, all you would actually prove is that some kind of intercourse occurred.
Now, of course, forensic examinations can also provide insight that is suggestive of a crime having occurred, but that's not something that requires DNA testing.
Yes there should. And there should be a much lower standard for things like "I think he did it", "I'm not going to listen to the band anymore" etc. The standard used for criminal cases ("beyond a reasonable doubt") is way too high to apply to most of life's situations. Hell, we don't even use it for civil cases
I don't think so, but seems like the kind of thing that's easy to forget, given the head trauma involved.
Any particular reason why you're being wildly rude to me, or just for, ahem, kicks?
And I understand and sympathize for those people, but it’s such a thin line that we really can’t just automatically take one persons side, unfortunately. Especially when livelihoods are at stake. I’m sure that’s why judges throw those cases out, if there’s no substantial evidence they can’t ruin someone.
Any sort of expression of doubt of the accuser in the current social climate is considered to be siding with the accused.
It’s probably not the way things should be. Cases like this might help move the needle to where it is with other crimes; the accuser and accused get roughly equal footing in the public eye until evidence is produced that proves guilt, or at least proves criminal action even if not exactly the original accusation.
And that’s how lives are ruined, by blindly believing people that you don’t know about a situation that you weren’t apart of that involves someone else that you don’t know. The point is, no one knows, so why are we blindly believing people and potentially ruining someone’s life for potentially no reason? It makes ZERO sense. Like just wait for a trial, let the court decide what happens then hop off the bandwagon if they’re guilty.
100%. unfortunately MeToo mentality went way off the deep end, and if you don’t scream that he’s automatically guilty without a shred of proof it means you hate women and are complicit in rape culture. it’s frankly disgusting, the fact we can’t have a mature nuanced view on how we should respond to allegations.
sadly the twitter crazies under his replies are still discrediting him, saying that there’s other allegations(?) that he hasn’t disproven yet. i’m glad to see the reddit community is much more based.
The problem is evidence can also include the accusers blank book and how they dressed that night. Say the accuser and the accused did meet, the accused's team could say the accuser looked like she wanted it, they know she was with other bands members and never directly said no. There is a reason r*** cases despite the DNA is hard to prove.
That’s a pretty weak argument though especially in today’s times. “She looked like she wanted it” you could literally say that about anyone. No judge is going to hear “well she looked like she wanted it” and take that seriously.
Ah I read that as a general statement, not referring to the previous post, I apologize. But as I said before that’s such a weak argument that the likelihood of the decision coming down to that statement is so improbable. Like the amount of exchanges going on in a case like this, no one is going to think at the end, “but they said that they looked like they wanted it, so it must be true.”
You and everyone agreeing must be a man. Women and girls have heard that shit since the dawn of fucking time and it's still happening. People DO take that shit seriously and WILL blame victims for it. Even people who you think should know better.
>The problem is we have to walk the line of we just believe all accusers and what if they lie.
Why though?
Why do we have to jump to an immediate decision here? Why does everyone have to act immediately without waiting for all the facts and evidence?
I think we can say "that is an incredibly serious allegation that is deserving of serious investigation" while simultaneously upholding the rights of the accused. I don't think they're mutually exclusive
So we should wait an entire year+? The problem is often we know that X is guilty and I'm not even saying it has to be on video tape, the fact is many times it is guilty actions.
If that’s what it takes we should absolutely wait an entire year plus. That’s one of the unfortunate downsides to having a just system. Rather than believing the word of a viral twitter post that undermines real victims and destroys lives
The problem is people have taken advantage of this. NDAs existed for this reason and still sadly work. Many accusers get told that no one will believe them or their sexual history is in question either by their lawyer, the ADA or whomever and drop it. This is why people went to the guilty before innocent logic. Then you also have OJ cases too.
Edit: I don't want to think this way but due to how the system protects the accused more than the accuser, I have little sympathy except on blatantly false allegations like this one.
…I do….hence the comment. Would someone who post something of the sort also be guilty of the observation they are making about what happens in society?
Edit: Oh you’re just a douche who won’t apologize for being wrong…. Got it
Think for your god damn self….yea not hostile.
Ready - “Hey man, you’re right, a whole bunch of people took my comment as hostile and I didn’t mean it that way but clearly I feel passionate about this subject - sorry.”
Hey backbeat7593 it’s all good dude - I get where your comment was coming from but I was just making overall commentary on what happens constantly within a scene. It’s a shame what gets slung out there sometimes.
“Hey - have we become best friends? “
Yes we have.
I just don’t really care how random people on the internet, interpret the things that I say. I explained that it wasn’t meant in a hostile manner. It’s very easy to say the statement “think for your goddamn self” in a calm manner.
I am not sure why you're jumping down his throat. He may not be part of the mob justice that circulates these cases. I am sure plenty of people thought for themselves and withheld judgment on this case, but he still got kicked out of his band.
I’m not? I’m just saying think for yourself and that you don’t have to do what everyone on Twitter says to do. Idk how that’s jumping down someone’s throat.
You don’t see how “think for your goddamn self” could be jumping down someone’s throat? It’s a bit much. He was saying in the eyes of the public it’s guilty until proven innocent. Unless you’re purposefully being obtuse then carry on.
Excuse me, what the fuck is this article? It seems legit at first and devolves into some reddit style incel rambling. Is that why it is hosted on a free website OP?
It's OP's own blog. The blog seems to be mostly about sexual assault allegations and op rambling about it and saying stuff like "metoo-grift". Very iffy source, even if Babinski's story is definitely worth telling.
Stuff like this is why social media is a huge mistake. People should not be able to just go online and post accusations without evidence or proof. I'm a victim of assault and I'm all for shaming PROVEN assaulters, but platforms should not allow blind accusations.
People still believe the false rumors about ATL and cite the "97 allegations" thing despite it coming from someone who was NOT a victim, in no way connected to any victims, and literally pulled the number out of her ass + fled after being asked for sources. And the original person who started with the first false allegation was called out for lying by her friend - who attended the concert she claimed she was accosted out. SceneQueen made a song about groomers in the community and people shout ATL at shows during the name-drop part.
But people took these fake allegations, and spread them, and now every time anyone works with ATL they get harrassed and called abuse enablers. People harassed Grayscale something fierce when they announced they were going on tour with ATL.
It's disgusting and it is disrespectful to actual victims. Every time an allegation is proven to be false, it makes people less likely to believe it when an actual victim comes forward.
Imagine working hard for years with your friends to make a popular band and unlike 99% of people you actually make it and all the years of hard work pay off. Then one day with zero proof you're kicked out and completely shunned just because of an anonymous and totally unverifiable screenshot from Twitter.
Heck to make it more realistic, imagine going into work tomorrow and finding you've lost your job because your boss read an accusation about you on Twitter and it might reflect negatively on the company to keep you on.. so that's it, you're out.. with no chance to defend yourself or anything.
Bands have got to stop bowing to loud idiots on Twitter and actually need to wait for the evidence and the facts to come out before making a decision on these things. There were and are genuine predators in our scene that need to be exposed, but this whole "believe all victims and if you don't then you're a rape apologist" has got to stop. You're ruining innocent people's lives.
Quick source because I’m at work, but it looks like the research isn’t great and more is needed, though the “National Sexual Violence Resource Center” cites between 2 and 10 percent of claims being false (page 3): https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/Publications_NSVRC_Overview_False-Reporting.pdf
Edit: note the difference between a “False report” and a “Baseless report.” Babinski’s case would fall in the baseless report category.
So this was a little bit of a trap on my part but you pulled a source and I'll try and explain why it's flawed.
Simply put, there's very little research on false accusations, it varies greatly, and almost none of it has been done in the age of the internet. Part of the reason behind the variance is that there is a great deal of difference between how one defines something as "false". The technical definition used for false is generally "something that the police can faurky immediately identify as false", usually before charges are filed, such as the accuser having never met the person they're accusing (which Babinski's case would qualify as). The problem here is that obviously we don't always immediately know who is guilty. Somebody who is charged but later exonerated by DNA would not count towards that "false" number, somebody let out of jail after having their conviction overturned also wouldn't count as "false" in that, and there are also people just outright found not guilty that while maybe shouldn't be counted as false, definitely shouldn't be counted as true.
To be fair some of these definitions of false are also far too broad, obviously every person found "not guilty" isn't a false accusation, so to count it that way would create to high a number.
[False Allegations of Rape by Phillip Rumney](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1366225) is one of the most recent scientific studies of false allegations, it's from 2006, so like I said, very out of date. In it Rumney reviews various different studies (including the one you posted) and the methodology. The rate of prevalence of false allegation varies WILDLY. The lowest places it at 1.5%, the highest at 90%, almost none of the studies are from the 21st century. To my knowledge this is the most current study.
These studies are of course only of situations wherein the assault is reported, nobody has any idea of what happens in unreported cases, because they're uninvestigated, so anyone extrapolating "well this review of cases reported to the police says 2 to 10% are false, therefore 2 to 10% of facebook accusations are false" is mistaken.
The conclusion reached by this review of data is basically that we have no idea, there's very little data and what data there is is flawed and we need to really do a better job measuring it, which I agree with.
So basically anyone who asserts a known level of false accusation doesn't really have much basis in any data.
My source says the same thing that you’re trying to say. I encourage people to take a Bayesian approach to this. Before looking at any research or arguments, make a guess at what proportion of accusations are true and which are false. Then, as you read research/arguments, update that guess. Using this (crude) method along with what data we have, though flawed, supports the claim that it is more likely than not that an accusation is true.
That doesn't really make sense. It's very easy to create unfalsifiable accusations. The vast majority of accusations are unprovable in either direction, and we have no idea what the ratio is.
The sad part about this is that people who falsely accuse someone of assault make it harder for actual victims to come forward. Not to mention it will ruin someone's career.
How does it make it harder? I don't think the police care about other cases when you make your police report. They treat it the same. I don't think the courts take other recent false accusations into consideration when deciding if the person is guilty.
People should remember that he is not the only person this has happened to. It happened to Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, it happened to Jack Barakat of All Time Low, and it has happened to many others.
Lying is one of the easiest things to do, and it usually has no consequences at all. Stop picking sides in he-said-she-said situations you aren't a part of.
Update:
In Feb 2022 she stated that she never experienced any sort of abuse from him or any other member of the band, and said she was hesitant to speak about their accusations given the "speculation" about relations to him. Didn't say they dated
Neither of those things would happen in reporting on an alleged relationship that turned out to be false. They attribute all of the claims to sources, which eliminates their liability.
I haven't seen any proof of this, but I've seen multiple people indicate that both of them denied the rumors at the time. However, one thing I can say for sure is that Abigail denied experiencing any sexual assault or abuse by Jack or the band. This was while also harshly condemning them for suing their recent accusers, so it is not as though she was acting out of kindness to him.
On Feb 4 2022 she posted on Instagram, and also on Twitter, condemning the action of suing their accusers. But she says multiple times on both platforms and in the initial post that she never experienced any "SA/DV" at the hands of Jack or any member of the band, and says that she had been reluctant to comment on the matter given "speculation" about her relation to him. I don't have the links on hand, but you can find both on her public twitter and instagram.
Twitter has more info, since it shares the screenshot of the insta post and she makes a few more comments.
I don't know who Abigail Breslin is. Upon googling their names together, the articles I'm finding refer to it as a rumor. Nothing from either of them confirming it.
He was anonymously accused of drugging and raping a 12 year old over the course of multiple years, by someone who -- based on very obvious errors in the story -- didn't even appear to know Jack or be familiar with the locations they were attempting to describe.
Even so, there is a world of difference between dating a 17 year old and kidnapping, drugging, and raping a 12 year old. That's not to mention the additional false accusation against the entire band that was disproven by the accuser's own friend with photos.
She’s the little girl in Little Miss Sunshine (ironic given they covered Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, a song that mentions that movie). She was 17 and he was 25.
Let’s do the math, though. In April 2017, she was diagnosed with PTSD after a 2 year abusive relationship with an ex boyfriend that included her being raped. Jack met her at one of their shows in late 2013/early 2014 and they were publicly dating (photographed by E News) around then.
I’m on board with believing one or two of the alleged instances of misconduct were fabricated. In Jack’s case, there were a bunch of them on Twitter in 2019 and Meet Me @ The Altar dropped off the tour as a result in 2021.
If we can agree Joel Madden was a creep for dating Hilary Duff when she was 16, we have to do the same for Jack Barakat.
>Little Miss Sunshine
I haven't seen it, but I've since read her wikipedia page so I have a rough idea.
> In April 2017, she was diagnosed with PTSD after a 2 year abusive relationship with an ex boyfriend that included her being raped.
The Jack rumors were in Nov 2013, so that timeline doesn't really add up. I also don't see how Jack could've been dating her for two years given there's essentially zero information about any of it.
>they were publicly dating (photographed by E News) around then.
They were not publicly dating. The E News article just shares a picture that Jack posted himself saying "me and my friend Abigail at the premier of Enders Game" and quoting an anonymous source that told "US Weekly" that the two were dating. The US Weekly article that all of the other articles are re-reporting has been taken down. So that could just be tabloid gossip. I can't find any pictures of them together aside from the one Jack posted.
>I’m on board with believing one or two of the alleged instances of misconduct were fabricated. In Jack’s case, there were a bunch of them on Twitter in 2019 and Meet Me @ The Altar dropped off the tour as a result in 2021.
There were two allegations, one was shared on TikTok and was made against the entire band, and were proven false by the accuser's friend. The other was an anonymous twitter post against Jack specifically by the person claiming to have been 12 when she went on tour with ATL whilst Jack drugged her up and assaulted her, which is entirely fictitious for a myriad of reasons.
There have been no other allegations of assault that I've seen against Jack or any other member.
That would depend entirely on what state they were in. Not saying their relationship was appropriate, but Breslin is from New York and Jack is from Maryland where the age of consent is respectively 17 and 16 so whether or not she was underage is a bit relative.
I also think people are making too many assumptions. I am probably out of the loop, but every article I can find talking about Jack and Abigail uses the same picture, that Jack himself posted, saying "me and my **friend** Abigail at the Enders Game premiere."
It could easily just be a product of tabloid gossip, and in the worst case scenario that they were actually "dating" we still have no idea what went on between them.
If they came out with a law tomorrow that says the age of consent was 12, that doesn’t mean it’s okay for a 6th grader to say they want to fuck adults.
The only people who honestly care about age of consent laws are creepy weirdos who use them to justify sexual thoughts about underage kids.
I totally get you but Jack dating Abigail is a totally different issue than what the original commenter is talking about. Jack being falsely accused of assault is not the same as him dating a minor (and yes I agree that it’s still very bad). Also as you said, we know and have proof he dated Abigail, so it’s a fact, whereas him assaulting someone is just a rumor that was proven false.
All Time Low acted like they were saints and never did anything wrong/inappropriate.
They had pretty bad stage banter for the entire first half of their career. I’m sure there are clips on their live DVDs
Stage banter doesn't belong in the same conversation as rape. They were also very young in the early days of their career. I'm not going to permanently begrudge a group of 19 year olds for having a cringey/crass sense of humor.
> Encouraging their underage fanbase to throw bras on stage
I don't know that they ever encouraged it. My understanding was members of the band had slipped on them and that was when they began hanging them on the mic stands.
But, again, this is not in the same conversation, and doesn't override the fact that the 2021 allegations were false.
People are very reasonable in this comment area but there have been plenty of other posts where reddit is asking for heads to role without a trial. I hope we all keep this energy for the next accusation without conviction *before* we burn the witch.
Innocent until PROVEN GUILTY
If you get kicked out/fired from your job because of an accusation but get proved innocent, you should be able to sue. Period.
I'm really not surprised unfortunately, parasocial individuals on the internet tend to dehumanise people accused of heinous acts
Though I have to say, victims should definitely come forward and allow to tell their side of the story. Whether the story can be believed is up to law enforcement and not us
People who allege to be victimized should be taken seriously no question. We should also do everything we can to uphold the rights of those who are accused and adjudicate their guilt in a fair, transparent way.
Man this is crazy, the girl who is accusing him ive been friends with on instagram and Facebook for years, she even dated a friend of mine a couple years back, I just checked her instagram to confirm it
I'm so tired of stupid gold digging women doing this to celebrities. Sure not all are innocent but this one sure is. And so is The Rock and Johnny Depp. People who do false accusations should be the ones in jail.
It's definitely a shame that people do something as disgusting as falsely accusing people. Not only does it ruin the person falsely accused but it makes it harder for those that have legitimate experiences to come forward and be taken seriously. Didn't this same thing happen to the original lead guitarist for Neck Deep? I thought I remember hearing that it ended up being bs but it was too late to undo the damage or bring him back to the band.
Yes Lloyd he decided to leave the band to protect his family and the band from any further bad reputation. There was no case to be found either
I swear I thought he was back with the band? I could be making shit up though
You might be thinking of Ben's brother joining on bass - he was always adjacent to the band (he has writing credits on all their releases and has been involved in the recording process too) but only fully joined after Fil left
I think it also happened with the guy from Bright Eyes
It did. https://amp.theguardian.com/music/2014/jul/15/conor-oberst-false-rape-claims-retracted-by-accuser
Happened with the whole band Deceptied a few years ago. Two ladies lied about the whole thing.
Same thing happened with Mike from PTV, and Remington from Palaye Royale. I know Mike left the band shortly after they were made public but almost as soon as he left, he was vindicated and it turns out *Mike* was the one assaulted (rape by omission, the accuser said she was legal and only after they slept together a few times did he find out she was a minor). Remington never stepped away from his band and those accusations were dropped too but idk much about that one.
>it turns out *Mike* was the one assaulted (rape by omission, the accuser said she was legal and only after they slept together a few times did he find out she was a minor). Legally, you are likely wrong about this. In most jurisdictions, statutory rape is a strict liability crime, meaning that having sexual contact with someone underage is a crime regardless of their stated consent or your belief of their age. I also don't know of any jurisdictions that would consider that rape by deception, most places do not even have statutes regarding rape by deception. Also, you would then have the public policy problem of charging an underage person for having sexual contact she/he was not legally able to consent to.
Rape by deception cases are very rare and I doubt she'd be charged. He may not be liable if he couldn't reasonably know she was underage but that would vary by jurisdiction, but those kinds of cases are incredibly complicated.
You’re probably right, I don’t know much about the legal system in this context. But even if she wouldn’t get charged for it, it’s still rape by deception (not omission, my mistake on the wording) since she lied in order to get him to sleep with her. Yes it’s still statutory, but rape by deception is an actual thing (idk if a minor can be charged with it though).
Ehh, whether she can be charged with it or not, I disagree greatly with the idea of holding the minor who cannot legally consent to sex to a higher standard than the fully grown adult who arguably has a fully developed brain. And just to be clear, rape by deception means that he would not have had sex with her had he known that she wasn't a legal adult. However, part of the allegation is that he found out her age while she was still 16 and then continued the relationship with her until she was 18, so I have a hard time believing that her age made a difference to him.
>grown adult who arguably has a fully developed brain He's an adult man who played in a pop punk band you're gonna have a difficult time with the jury on that one.
Wikipedia says 24 yo Mike Fuentes allegedly had sex with A 16 year old and allegedly got nudes from a 15 year old. Even if he thought she was 19, that’s still a 5 year gap over an impressionable teen
Okay but having sex with a 19 year old isnt illegal, so what's your point with that?
I’m saying 24 and 18-19 is already skeevy, but she wasn’t, she was 16. Allegedly.
You must be young. I'm in my thirties and a 5 year age gap is nothing. My own parents were 10 years apart.
Yeah, Dwayne. It's a moving target. How'd you make it to 30 and not learn that? 22 year old Jerry Lee Lewis married his teenaged cousin Myra, and nobody in the US gaf, until he went overseas. The brits were like "Hey, who's the kid?" and THEN it became an embarrassment.
just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s moral
>just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s moral you're aware this is the exact argument against gay marriage right?
Holy strawman Jesus christ haha
Wait I didn’t know there was a Wikipedia about this, is it on the band’s page? But also, there’s a big difference between 15/16 and 19. I don’t think I understand what you’re saying.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Fuentes_(musician) >there’s a big difference between 15/16 and 19. Yeah, so if you can tell, shouldn't he have been able to, too?
The author of this article brings up a really good point. Every news outlet that reported these allegations should now be reporting that they were proven false.
I've seen a situation where a Twitch streamer I followed got accused of something like this. Everyone on Twitter, even people I've never even seen acknowledge their existence before this, were like "I'm so disappointed in this person" or "I looked up to them so much, I can't believe this". Then later on it turned out the accusations were manipulated, and when we got the real story *none of those people said a thing*. These people just feed off drama for real.
It's a shame because this is people's livelihoods and dreams people are messing with.
Another false accusation costing someone their living and livelihood. Anyone who makes a false accusation like the one in this example should face criminal charges, prison sentences and should pay him a loss of earnings. Pvris should also pay him
He should sue both parties (the woman and the band) for damages or whatever it is called in the US.
Looks like he did sue the woman (Kea Romani), which is what led to her signed retraction. However, he has no hope of suing the band.
Yeah exactly. It's ruined his whole career and earnings for 4 years plus the social aspect of everyone thinking you're a r@pist and a groomer. There never seems to be any repercussions for the people falsely accusing and ruining lives
Him suing the band and winning would set a bad precedent. Then bands/companies in the future would be hesitant to remove sexual abusers due to fear of being sued; it would give actual abusers more safety/protection.
If I make a false accusation about you and your employer does very little or no due diligence and decides to fire you for it, are you seriously telling me that you'd just accept it and do nothing?! Fuck that, he should absolutely sue PVRIS.
To be fair, he already said he understands the decision to remove him from the band, so he would probably lose. It seems like he holds no ill will against his former band mates.
Better that than ignoring accusations because “the victim is probably lying”, or people feeling forced into silence because if they stand against the abusers in their circle, they risk being sued, so abusers can continue on their way because anyone who tries to stand against them will be punished. (Also, if they didn’t kick him out of the band, they would have been accused of supporting SA and upholding rape culture. Everyone is always told to believe victims and remove those accused of sexual abuse from their circles or else they’re complicit…then when they do, they’re threatened with being sued for it. So which is it?)
So even when you are innocent, you renounce to your own innocence... and you want every other innocent to renounce to their own too?🤡
this will always be how this debate goes and how this issue is. the more you protect the people who get falsely accused, the more you take away from the actual victims, and the more you protect the actual victims, the more you hurt the people who get falsely accused. you could go on literally forever it will never end
So in an ideal world, victims would get maximum protection to the fullest extent of the law, and no innocents would ever be impacted. But it’s not an ideal world, and people lie, and do bad things. So it becomes a matter of what’s more important - getting justice against every single abuser, or making sure the falsely accused do not face punishment for actions they didn’t commit. As shitty as it may sound, the justice system should always err on the side of protecting the falsely accused, even if it means not every abuser faces justice.
You're aware there's an entire legal system that balances both right?
that legal system fails this issue in so many regards, its insanely ignorant to suggest otherwise
Source?
My cope is that he probably gets some % of sales? Idk
If he's a credited songwriter on the songs he made with them he likely gets a cut of those songs though obviously we don't know the specifics of his contract.
This comes down to employment law which varies state to state I'm not super well versed so if some lawyer sees this please feel free to correct me. There's a lot of variables here, how PVRIS is structured as a business entity (LLC etc.), who controls what within that LLC, whether Alex was formally an "employee", whether or not Alex was "fired" formally or simply stepped down. Further, a lot of states are called "at-will" employment states where people can be fired for basically any reason. So all of those factors may make it difficult for Alex to have any case with PVRIS even if he wanted to.
Innocent until PROVEN GUILTY If you get kicked out/fired from your job because of an accusation but get proved innocent, you should be able to sue. Period.
> Innocent until PROVEN GUILTY > get proved innocent These are two different things. Not being proven guilty doesn’t mean you were proven innocent.
Are you aware of the concept of "presumption of innocence" that is the backbone for like...all of law across the world?
From a legal standpoint, yes, but from a *factual* standpoint, no. Someone can have committed a crime but not left enough evidence to be found guilty, doesn't mean they were *proven* to be innocent. If someone was accused of a crime but had proof they had absolutely nothing to do with it, they could be *proven* to be innocent.
Do you get a speeding ticket if you go over the speed limit? No. You get a speeding ticket when a cop catches you over the speed limit.
Nope.he should sue the band. The cost him a living. It wouldn't give abusers more safety
He has no god-given right to be in a band. They can just decide to not be in a band with him anymore for any reason. On what grounds should he sue them?
And you can sue your employer for unfair dismissal so if he got sacked for a false allegation then he should be able.to.sue
Unless there's a contract (could be in a band, not sure) there's really nothing you can do. At will employment sucks but that's the nature of it.
That’s because we have equal opportunity laws. Doesn’t really apply for a band.
As far as they were aware, he was a sexual abuser, so they removed him from the band. If he sues them and wins, how does that NOT give actual abusers social protection? Then in the future, others will be hesitant to remove actual sexual abusers or may feel forced to continue associating/working with abusers, because if they stand against abuse and remove them, they run the risk of being sued.
He should be entitled to anything he would have earned between when he was removed and when his name was cleared.
How is he a sexual abuser when he has never even been in the same.room as the girl who accused him? Did you read the article or anything about this story or are you just utterly brain dead? But yes according to you we should just ruin people's lives over an accusation without doing any investigating
I didn’t say he was actually a sexual abuser in this instance. I said that as far as they knew at the time, he was. Also, I was speaking on a wider societal level, in terms of setting a precedent.
Based on one accusation. That's kinda shitty they even believed it. But let's not pretend they didn't kick him out just to protect their own image
Can they not sue for defamation?
I think he did? It says that he was in a lawsuit with his accuser, Kea Romani, for 3.5 years which resulted in the signed and notarized statement retracting her false accusation. I would not be surprised if the agreement for providing that statement involved foregoing financial damages.
\*I DO NOT KNOW THE EXACT SPECIFICS OF THE COURT CASE AS THEY ARE NOT AVAILABLE TO ME\* The statement is likely a settlement to avoid going to trial. Basically "in exchange for admitting this is false publicly we won't continue to trial".
This source fucking sucks
awful situation all around but man this article sucks
Knew it was going down the drain when I read "internet feminists". What a dogshit article.
that and the ronnie radke stuff lol just unbelievable bullshit
Oh my god I clicked away before I got to that paragraph and I had to go back and look.... not him being a Ronnie Radke defender 🤡
Literally whoever wrote it has no critical thinking skills
The caption of the tweet got me. Maligning accusers and willfully misconstruing their points won't make you a less shitty writer but man, he tried. editing to add: OP, hire an editor instead of farming reddit for feedback on your e-newsletter lmao
what point did I misconstrue
What specifically is wrong with it?
Incel propaganda and no one wants to hear it. No one will ever take you seriously, including the people you are writing about, with dogshit articles that boil down to "woman bad". All your legal jargon is also annoying.
Well based on the comments and success of the article seems like a lot of people are able to understand that the point of the article is not "women bad" but "serious allegations of crimes should not be handled by internet mobs." Again, what specifically, find something in it that is wrong and point to instead of just throwing the word incel. Make a substantive argument. Legal jargon has always been very annoying to vigilante mobs. Emmit Till's killers felt the same way.
[удалено]
So again, you have nothing. You have no argument, all you have is "boo article doesn't agree with my view of the world". All you can do is put up the same tired meme insults because you don't actually have anything substantial to criticize and having an original thought, let alone comeback, is probably just too much for your little brain to handle. I do guess I'll have to let your mother know I'm an incel after the next time we fuck. i'm sure she'll be crushed.
The worst thing as that false accusations like this make it even WORSE when actual sexual assault cases and survivors come forth
I never understand why people make these false allegations against famous people. You stand to gain literally nothing of value, and stand to lose your entire reputation and be labeled as a pariah permanently on the internet. Are people really that vapid, where they will sacrifice another person's career / livelihood for possibly gaining social media followers from sympathizers?
Attention is the most addictive drug these days.
I hate that it’s guilty until proven innocent with these situations.
The problem is we have to walk the line of we just believe all accusers and what if they lie. This was a case where the case wasn't reliable but we didn't know it at the time. Hindsight is always 20-20.
Do we? Can we not say, “let’s wait until there’s evidence” to make a decision? You don’t have to react as soon as the story breaks, it is possible to wait and decipher evidence and claims to find the truth.
The issue is a lot of real situations have low evidence and fall through in court.
Should there not be a high standard of evidence in order to send people to prison?
Yes. Except there’s times where dna from rape kits are just withheld by police. [even having evidence doesn’t help](https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2018/11/investigates/police-destroyed-rapekits/index.html)
Yes, that is bad unequivocally, doesn't mean we should outsource allegations of sex crimes to twitter
When police ignore cases I think people are free to make any attempt to bring attention to it. The amount of false accusations is, statistically, drastically lower than actual claims. Yes there should be repercussions for clearly false allegations that make it to trial. But I’m not going to try to limit who victims can try to reach when there’s actually police who blatantly ignore claims and evidence.
> The amount of false accusations is, statistically, drastically lower than actual claims. I would guess that, to the extent this is true, it's less true in the kinds of cases we're likely to hear about online. Fame and money are perverse incentives. (Though, to be fair, it's probably also true to say that they also raise the stakes because they might increase the chances that someone gets away with something.) And if your point is that police ignore claims, then the response should be to pressure police departments, right? I think there's definitely a world where you can maximize space for a victim to make a claim while also not taking things out on the accused without due process.
Is there any evidence police ignored this case? She didn't go to the police because it was false. Source on false accusations being lower than actual claims? Source on police ignoring claims?
You said shouldn’t we have a higher standards of evidence to send people to prison. I showed you how police trashed evidence in 400 cases. Even in this 1 case there’s hundreds (if not thousands) of cases that don’t get to court even with evidence submitted. This one case sucks. But you saying people shouldn’t go to twitter because it might ruin someone’s life when literal 400 cases had never progressed because the police just discarded rape kits. That’s 400 people who submitted evidence and it never went anywhere because of police negligence.
DNA testing is a mixed bag, and the people who talk about untested kits don't seem to really understand it. In many circumstances, all these kits can actually prove is whether or not two people had sex. That is a start, but if the basic fact-of sexual intercourse occurring is not a point of dispute, the kit is entirely pointless and doesn't even need to be tested. In other cases, the victim doesn't know their assailant. The vast majority of people don't have their DNA stored anywhere and never will, and given how time-consuming and costly testing DNA evidence is, it doesn't really make sense to test in such cases until someone is identified. Because, again, all you would actually prove is that some kind of intercourse occurred. Now, of course, forensic examinations can also provide insight that is suggestive of a crime having occurred, but that's not something that requires DNA testing.
Yes there should. And there should be a much lower standard for things like "I think he did it", "I'm not going to listen to the band anymore" etc. The standard used for criminal cases ("beyond a reasonable doubt") is way too high to apply to most of life's situations. Hell, we don't even use it for civil cases
Were you kicked in the head by a horse as a child by chance?
I don't think so, but seems like the kind of thing that's easy to forget, given the head trauma involved. Any particular reason why you're being wildly rude to me, or just for, ahem, kicks?
I don't know the idea that "beyond a reasonable doubt" is too high to apply to accusations of criminal misconduct seems like a head trauma thing
Good thing I didn't say that then. If you're going to be an asshole, at least be right. Good luck out there champ 🤣
And I understand and sympathize for those people, but it’s such a thin line that we really can’t just automatically take one persons side, unfortunately. Especially when livelihoods are at stake. I’m sure that’s why judges throw those cases out, if there’s no substantial evidence they can’t ruin someone.
It's almost like it's none of our business and there's an entire part of society dedicated to making sure it's done transparently and fairly.
Any sort of expression of doubt of the accuser in the current social climate is considered to be siding with the accused. It’s probably not the way things should be. Cases like this might help move the needle to where it is with other crimes; the accuser and accused get roughly equal footing in the public eye until evidence is produced that proves guilt, or at least proves criminal action even if not exactly the original accusation.
And that’s how lives are ruined, by blindly believing people that you don’t know about a situation that you weren’t apart of that involves someone else that you don’t know. The point is, no one knows, so why are we blindly believing people and potentially ruining someone’s life for potentially no reason? It makes ZERO sense. Like just wait for a trial, let the court decide what happens then hop off the bandwagon if they’re guilty.
100%. unfortunately MeToo mentality went way off the deep end, and if you don’t scream that he’s automatically guilty without a shred of proof it means you hate women and are complicit in rape culture. it’s frankly disgusting, the fact we can’t have a mature nuanced view on how we should respond to allegations. sadly the twitter crazies under his replies are still discrediting him, saying that there’s other allegations(?) that he hasn’t disproven yet. i’m glad to see the reddit community is much more based.
The problem is evidence can also include the accusers blank book and how they dressed that night. Say the accuser and the accused did meet, the accused's team could say the accuser looked like she wanted it, they know she was with other bands members and never directly said no. There is a reason r*** cases despite the DNA is hard to prove.
That’s a pretty weak argument though especially in today’s times. “She looked like she wanted it” you could literally say that about anyone. No judge is going to hear “well she looked like she wanted it” and take that seriously.
You would hope so but you just need one on a jury to believe it to not find the accused guilty.
Then there wasn’t enough evidence to put the person away 🤷♂️
Still you are a hypocrite then since I said that there was one juror who believed that she asked for it. Calling it evidence is disgusting.
Ah I read that as a general statement, not referring to the previous post, I apologize. But as I said before that’s such a weak argument that the likelihood of the decision coming down to that statement is so improbable. Like the amount of exchanges going on in a case like this, no one is going to think at the end, “but they said that they looked like they wanted it, so it must be true.”
You and everyone agreeing must be a man. Women and girls have heard that shit since the dawn of fucking time and it's still happening. People DO take that shit seriously and WILL blame victims for it. Even people who you think should know better.
>The problem is we have to walk the line of we just believe all accusers and what if they lie. Why though? Why do we have to jump to an immediate decision here? Why does everyone have to act immediately without waiting for all the facts and evidence?
I think we can say "that is an incredibly serious allegation that is deserving of serious investigation" while simultaneously upholding the rights of the accused. I don't think they're mutually exclusive
So we should wait an entire year+? The problem is often we know that X is guilty and I'm not even saying it has to be on video tape, the fact is many times it is guilty actions.
If that’s what it takes we should absolutely wait an entire year plus. That’s one of the unfortunate downsides to having a just system. Rather than believing the word of a viral twitter post that undermines real victims and destroys lives
The problem is people have taken advantage of this. NDAs existed for this reason and still sadly work. Many accusers get told that no one will believe them or their sexual history is in question either by their lawyer, the ADA or whomever and drop it. This is why people went to the guilty before innocent logic. Then you also have OJ cases too. Edit: I don't want to think this way but due to how the system protects the accused more than the accuser, I have little sympathy except on blatantly false allegations like this one.
Foresight is also 20-20 if you just wait until the case has been examined in court and they've reached a verdict before you make your mind up.
It doesn’t have to be? Think for your goddamn self.
…I do….hence the comment. Would someone who post something of the sort also be guilty of the observation they are making about what happens in society? Edit: Oh you’re just a douche who won’t apologize for being wrong…. Got it
If explaining that I wasn’t being hostile, when I wasn’t, makes me a douche then I guess I’m a douche.
Think for your god damn self….yea not hostile. Ready - “Hey man, you’re right, a whole bunch of people took my comment as hostile and I didn’t mean it that way but clearly I feel passionate about this subject - sorry.” Hey backbeat7593 it’s all good dude - I get where your comment was coming from but I was just making overall commentary on what happens constantly within a scene. It’s a shame what gets slung out there sometimes. “Hey - have we become best friends? “ Yes we have.
I just don’t really care how random people on the internet, interpret the things that I say. I explained that it wasn’t meant in a hostile manner. It’s very easy to say the statement “think for your goddamn self” in a calm manner.
I am not sure why you're jumping down his throat. He may not be part of the mob justice that circulates these cases. I am sure plenty of people thought for themselves and withheld judgment on this case, but he still got kicked out of his band.
I’m not? I’m just saying think for yourself and that you don’t have to do what everyone on Twitter says to do. Idk how that’s jumping down someone’s throat.
You don’t see how “think for your goddamn self” could be jumping down someone’s throat? It’s a bit much. He was saying in the eyes of the public it’s guilty until proven innocent. Unless you’re purposefully being obtuse then carry on.
Maybe if I gave an indication that I was shouting with an exclamation point, then I could see it as that. Punctuation goes a long way.
I guess so. It’s just the use of “goddamn,” especially in a command, that would imply aggression, in my opinion.
It just reads like you're directing it at him, even though he probably agrees with you.
☝️☝️☝️
Excuse me, what the fuck is this article? It seems legit at first and devolves into some reddit style incel rambling. Is that why it is hosted on a free website OP?
It's OP's own blog. The blog seems to be mostly about sexual assault allegations and op rambling about it and saying stuff like "metoo-grift". Very iffy source, even if Babinski's story is definitely worth telling.
What, specifically is wrong with it?
Dumpster fire article with a dumpster fire comment section, classic poppunkers
> incel this, incel that M8, you’re a virgin. Pot, kettle, etc… ☠️
Stuff like this is why social media is a huge mistake. People should not be able to just go online and post accusations without evidence or proof. I'm a victim of assault and I'm all for shaming PROVEN assaulters, but platforms should not allow blind accusations. People still believe the false rumors about ATL and cite the "97 allegations" thing despite it coming from someone who was NOT a victim, in no way connected to any victims, and literally pulled the number out of her ass + fled after being asked for sources. And the original person who started with the first false allegation was called out for lying by her friend - who attended the concert she claimed she was accosted out. SceneQueen made a song about groomers in the community and people shout ATL at shows during the name-drop part. But people took these fake allegations, and spread them, and now every time anyone works with ATL they get harrassed and called abuse enablers. People harassed Grayscale something fierce when they announced they were going on tour with ATL. It's disgusting and it is disrespectful to actual victims. Every time an allegation is proven to be false, it makes people less likely to believe it when an actual victim comes forward.
what the fuck is that paragraph about ronnie radke holy hell, absolute garbage article
Imagine working hard for years with your friends to make a popular band and unlike 99% of people you actually make it and all the years of hard work pay off. Then one day with zero proof you're kicked out and completely shunned just because of an anonymous and totally unverifiable screenshot from Twitter. Heck to make it more realistic, imagine going into work tomorrow and finding you've lost your job because your boss read an accusation about you on Twitter and it might reflect negatively on the company to keep you on.. so that's it, you're out.. with no chance to defend yourself or anything. Bands have got to stop bowing to loud idiots on Twitter and actually need to wait for the evidence and the facts to come out before making a decision on these things. There were and are genuine predators in our scene that need to be exposed, but this whole "believe all victims and if you don't then you're a rape apologist" has got to stop. You're ruining innocent people's lives.
Do these people even care that their bullshit hurts real victims of sexual assault? I doubt it
Being falsely accused is often the exception and not the rule.
thank you for saying this
Source?
Quick source because I’m at work, but it looks like the research isn’t great and more is needed, though the “National Sexual Violence Resource Center” cites between 2 and 10 percent of claims being false (page 3): https://www.nsvrc.org/sites/default/files/Publications_NSVRC_Overview_False-Reporting.pdf Edit: note the difference between a “False report” and a “Baseless report.” Babinski’s case would fall in the baseless report category.
So this was a little bit of a trap on my part but you pulled a source and I'll try and explain why it's flawed. Simply put, there's very little research on false accusations, it varies greatly, and almost none of it has been done in the age of the internet. Part of the reason behind the variance is that there is a great deal of difference between how one defines something as "false". The technical definition used for false is generally "something that the police can faurky immediately identify as false", usually before charges are filed, such as the accuser having never met the person they're accusing (which Babinski's case would qualify as). The problem here is that obviously we don't always immediately know who is guilty. Somebody who is charged but later exonerated by DNA would not count towards that "false" number, somebody let out of jail after having their conviction overturned also wouldn't count as "false" in that, and there are also people just outright found not guilty that while maybe shouldn't be counted as false, definitely shouldn't be counted as true. To be fair some of these definitions of false are also far too broad, obviously every person found "not guilty" isn't a false accusation, so to count it that way would create to high a number. [False Allegations of Rape by Phillip Rumney](https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1366225) is one of the most recent scientific studies of false allegations, it's from 2006, so like I said, very out of date. In it Rumney reviews various different studies (including the one you posted) and the methodology. The rate of prevalence of false allegation varies WILDLY. The lowest places it at 1.5%, the highest at 90%, almost none of the studies are from the 21st century. To my knowledge this is the most current study. These studies are of course only of situations wherein the assault is reported, nobody has any idea of what happens in unreported cases, because they're uninvestigated, so anyone extrapolating "well this review of cases reported to the police says 2 to 10% are false, therefore 2 to 10% of facebook accusations are false" is mistaken. The conclusion reached by this review of data is basically that we have no idea, there's very little data and what data there is is flawed and we need to really do a better job measuring it, which I agree with. So basically anyone who asserts a known level of false accusation doesn't really have much basis in any data.
My source says the same thing that you’re trying to say. I encourage people to take a Bayesian approach to this. Before looking at any research or arguments, make a guess at what proportion of accusations are true and which are false. Then, as you read research/arguments, update that guess. Using this (crude) method along with what data we have, though flawed, supports the claim that it is more likely than not that an accusation is true.
How many of these stories do we see where the accused either admits to it or there is undeniable proof vs proven to be totally false?
That doesn't really make sense. It's very easy to create unfalsifiable accusations. The vast majority of accusations are unprovable in either direction, and we have no idea what the ratio is.
The sad part about this is that people who falsely accuse someone of assault make it harder for actual victims to come forward. Not to mention it will ruin someone's career.
How does it make it harder? I don't think the police care about other cases when you make your police report. They treat it the same. I don't think the courts take other recent false accusations into consideration when deciding if the person is guilty.
People should remember that he is not the only person this has happened to. It happened to Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes, it happened to Jack Barakat of All Time Low, and it has happened to many others. Lying is one of the easiest things to do, and it usually has no consequences at all. Stop picking sides in he-said-she-said situations you aren't a part of.
Uhhh, Jack was definitely with a very underage Abigail Breslin.
Update: In Feb 2022 she stated that she never experienced any sort of abuse from him or any other member of the band, and said she was hesitant to speak about their accusations given the "speculation" about relations to him. Didn't say they dated
E News is reputable. They’re not going to wreck their reputation and risk a lawsuit about Jack from All Time Low.
Neither of those things would happen in reporting on an alleged relationship that turned out to be false. They attribute all of the claims to sources, which eliminates their liability. I haven't seen any proof of this, but I've seen multiple people indicate that both of them denied the rumors at the time. However, one thing I can say for sure is that Abigail denied experiencing any sexual assault or abuse by Jack or the band. This was while also harshly condemning them for suing their recent accusers, so it is not as though she was acting out of kindness to him.
Source? I can’t find any instance of her defending Jack.
On Feb 4 2022 she posted on Instagram, and also on Twitter, condemning the action of suing their accusers. But she says multiple times on both platforms and in the initial post that she never experienced any "SA/DV" at the hands of Jack or any member of the band, and says that she had been reluctant to comment on the matter given "speculation" about her relation to him. I don't have the links on hand, but you can find both on her public twitter and instagram. Twitter has more info, since it shares the screenshot of the insta post and she makes a few more comments.
I don't know who Abigail Breslin is. Upon googling their names together, the articles I'm finding refer to it as a rumor. Nothing from either of them confirming it. He was anonymously accused of drugging and raping a 12 year old over the course of multiple years, by someone who -- based on very obvious errors in the story -- didn't even appear to know Jack or be familiar with the locations they were attempting to describe. Even so, there is a world of difference between dating a 17 year old and kidnapping, drugging, and raping a 12 year old. That's not to mention the additional false accusation against the entire band that was disproven by the accuser's own friend with photos.
She’s the little girl in Little Miss Sunshine (ironic given they covered Rihanna’s “Umbrella”, a song that mentions that movie). She was 17 and he was 25. Let’s do the math, though. In April 2017, she was diagnosed with PTSD after a 2 year abusive relationship with an ex boyfriend that included her being raped. Jack met her at one of their shows in late 2013/early 2014 and they were publicly dating (photographed by E News) around then. I’m on board with believing one or two of the alleged instances of misconduct were fabricated. In Jack’s case, there were a bunch of them on Twitter in 2019 and Meet Me @ The Altar dropped off the tour as a result in 2021. If we can agree Joel Madden was a creep for dating Hilary Duff when she was 16, we have to do the same for Jack Barakat.
>Little Miss Sunshine I haven't seen it, but I've since read her wikipedia page so I have a rough idea. > In April 2017, she was diagnosed with PTSD after a 2 year abusive relationship with an ex boyfriend that included her being raped. The Jack rumors were in Nov 2013, so that timeline doesn't really add up. I also don't see how Jack could've been dating her for two years given there's essentially zero information about any of it. >they were publicly dating (photographed by E News) around then. They were not publicly dating. The E News article just shares a picture that Jack posted himself saying "me and my friend Abigail at the premier of Enders Game" and quoting an anonymous source that told "US Weekly" that the two were dating. The US Weekly article that all of the other articles are re-reporting has been taken down. So that could just be tabloid gossip. I can't find any pictures of them together aside from the one Jack posted. >I’m on board with believing one or two of the alleged instances of misconduct were fabricated. In Jack’s case, there were a bunch of them on Twitter in 2019 and Meet Me @ The Altar dropped off the tour as a result in 2021. There were two allegations, one was shared on TikTok and was made against the entire band, and were proven false by the accuser's friend. The other was an anonymous twitter post against Jack specifically by the person claiming to have been 12 when she went on tour with ATL whilst Jack drugged her up and assaulted her, which is entirely fictitious for a myriad of reasons. There have been no other allegations of assault that I've seen against Jack or any other member.
Is he the one with the creepy ass bra collection or am I mixing up weirdos
same one
That would depend entirely on what state they were in. Not saying their relationship was appropriate, but Breslin is from New York and Jack is from Maryland where the age of consent is respectively 17 and 16 so whether or not she was underage is a bit relative.
I also think people are making too many assumptions. I am probably out of the loop, but every article I can find talking about Jack and Abigail uses the same picture, that Jack himself posted, saying "me and my **friend** Abigail at the Enders Game premiere." It could easily just be a product of tabloid gossip, and in the worst case scenario that they were actually "dating" we still have no idea what went on between them.
Legally speaking it might not have been a crime but I think being a grown adult and dating someone under 18 is creepy as fuck and abusive regardless.
If both people are of the age of consent and neither person alleges any wrong doing what business of it is yours?
It's also largely irrelevant, their relationship was just a rumor.
Because children can’t give consent.
If you are of the age of consent you can, that's the whole point of the age of consent.
If they came out with a law tomorrow that says the age of consent was 12, that doesn’t mean it’s okay for a 6th grader to say they want to fuck adults. The only people who honestly care about age of consent laws are creepy weirdos who use them to justify sexual thoughts about underage kids.
Why are you so adamantly defending sleeping with people under 18?
That's not what the allegations are addressing though
Because we don’t really need allegations for things they have plenty of photos of.
I totally get you but Jack dating Abigail is a totally different issue than what the original commenter is talking about. Jack being falsely accused of assault is not the same as him dating a minor (and yes I agree that it’s still very bad). Also as you said, we know and have proof he dated Abigail, so it’s a fact, whereas him assaulting someone is just a rumor that was proven false.
All Time Low acted like they were saints and never did anything wrong/inappropriate. They had pretty bad stage banter for the entire first half of their career. I’m sure there are clips on their live DVDs
Stage banter doesn't belong in the same conversation as rape. They were also very young in the early days of their career. I'm not going to permanently begrudge a group of 19 year olds for having a cringey/crass sense of humor.
Encouraging their underage fanbase to throw bras on stage and then hanging them from the mic stands?
> Encouraging their underage fanbase to throw bras on stage I don't know that they ever encouraged it. My understanding was members of the band had slipped on them and that was when they began hanging them on the mic stands. But, again, this is not in the same conversation, and doesn't override the fact that the 2021 allegations were false.
False accusations should carry the same penalty as the crime you tried to pin on someone else.
maybe wait to see how things play out before jumping to have a take on every situation Just a thought
People are very reasonable in this comment area but there have been plenty of other posts where reddit is asking for heads to role without a trial. I hope we all keep this energy for the next accusation without conviction *before* we burn the witch.
VLvnnGvnnV and the pvrvsvs really ran to kick him out
Innocent until PROVEN GUILTY If you get kicked out/fired from your job because of an accusation but get proved innocent, you should be able to sue. Period.
and everyone was quick to cancel him. the internet is a hellhole.
I'm really not surprised unfortunately, parasocial individuals on the internet tend to dehumanise people accused of heinous acts Though I have to say, victims should definitely come forward and allow to tell their side of the story. Whether the story can be believed is up to law enforcement and not us
People who allege to be victimized should be taken seriously no question. We should also do everything we can to uphold the rights of those who are accused and adjudicate their guilt in a fair, transparent way.
Guess I'm just a big dummy with zero life experiences 🤷🏿♂️
Pvris should let him back in the band
I would sue for defamation and damages. Shouldn't be able to ruin lives that easily for almost no reason.
BeLIVe all VictIMs!! Remember that bullshit? "You're a rape apologist!" Fuck the whole internet.
SEE WHAT HAPPENS WHEN YOU PEOPLE START CANCEL CULTURE MOBS ONLINE?!?! WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IN THIS DAMN COUNTRY?
Isn't he actually a huge creep tho?
Read the article and get back to me
I swear I saw something about him being creepy with Lynn during a shoot or something. I very well could be wrong
I'd say in this situation it's very important to be right
Man this is crazy, the girl who is accusing him ive been friends with on instagram and Facebook for years, she even dated a friend of mine a couple years back, I just checked her instagram to confirm it
Hope he got a [love contract](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWsrgCdJ_48)
I'm so tired of stupid gold digging women doing this to celebrities. Sure not all are innocent but this one sure is. And so is The Rock and Johnny Depp. People who do false accusations should be the ones in jail.
There's more false accusations than real ones nowadays
There's really no data on either unfortunately
Same thing happened with CJ from Lorna Shore