this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
394 points (94.6% liked)
Technology
59578 readers
2904 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related content.
- Be excellent to each another!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
Approved Bots
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Oh wow. Just like that, Russell is rapist.
Yeah. Here:
https://amp.theguardian.com/culture/2023/sep/17/a-timeline-of-sexual-assault-allegations-against-russell-brand
Of all those claims, these stuck out:
a 16 year old in 2006 when he was 30 and gave her instructions to hide from parents. Underage is rape.
In 2012 he is accused of raping a woman who was treated in a Rape Treatment Center afterwards.
In 2020, there was another 16 year old and evidently his manager believed him at first and then issued a statement saying he was misled and terminated business with him.
16 is not underage in the UK, where this is alleged to have happened.
While it's not "technically" underage rape, let's be honest it basically is. No normal person thinks it's acceptable for some in there 30s to have a relationship with a 16 year old.
The law is there to protect say an 18 year old in collage, where it's common for 16-18 year olds to be in the same classes, not for creepy 30+ year olds.
That's not how the law works though. You can drink whatever alcohol you can legally buy the second you turn 18 (in the UK). The same applies for sex at 16. Maybe you don't like it, but 16 is the age of consent for sex, with whoever else is legal.
He's abusing the law, it's obviously not designed for a 30 plus year old to have a relationship with a 16 year old.
It was last revised under the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 where it was raised from 13 to 16... so I would think it probably was designed exactly that way. None of the parliaments in the UK seem to have any intention of raising it.
This is the British parliament we're talking about. The law was likely designed so that British politicians and nobility could bang a 14 or 15yo and still have a chance at convincing a jury that they, "thought they were 16! It's not like I'm going to demand ID!"
Both child grooming and emotional and sexual assault are illegal in the UK, bizarre as this may seem to you.
I fully support them being illegal, why would you think that would be bizarre to me?
I merely pointed out, in the case of the 16 year old schoolgirl, she was not legally underage, no matter how shocking and disturbing we may find Brand’s behaviour, which I do. I don’t think she has made any claims of rape or assault against Brand, but others have. I don’t know what laws, if any, apply to his treatment of her, but I don’t think underage sex is one of them.
If we think something is already illegal when it isn’t, then it reduces the incentive to change the law - why make something illegal when you already think it is? Possibly the UK needs new legislation to vary the age of consent depending on the participants, as in other states.
She has accused him both of rape and of grooming her. What on earth do you think her punching him in the stomach while he forcibly deep throated her was supposed to be?
This has been highlighted in the news coverage.
Sorry, I had not seen that particular accusation from “Alice”, but the story is evolving and there are many people coming forward with different allegations.
I only see allegations, no convictions. Remember what happened to Kevin Spacey and Julian Assange?
For what it's worth: I'm not saying he's innocent. But to go from allegation to conviction, you'll need a judge in my book. Not a trial by media.
Youtube yanks monetization from much poorer people for much more mysterious and never revealed reasons. It's a privately owned business, known for fucking over its content creators.
Well there are cases where one unnamed source makes an unprovable accusation, and then there are cases with multiple alleged victims over the span of a decade...
don't pretend like it would be impossible for the powers that be to conjure up people to make simultaneous accusations to get someone out of the public arena
So you're willing to believe that "the powers that be" would fake a +10 year string of sexual misconduct allegations against some British B-Tier celeb, but are at the same time incapable of fixing the courts?
Yes? It's orders of magnitude easier to get someone to make false accusations than to fix the court system. Not sure that's a controversial statement.
So do you think these accusations were done in preparation, or someone has a serious grudge against Russell, or are we all being retconned?
Could be anything, yeah. Could be because they want to extract wealth from him, could be because they don't like what he says. Or he could have actually raped someone. You don't know and neither do I
And apparently for 10 years they haven't been able to find any evidence of these claims.
Yes, this is true about Spacey being innocent. I have personally known people who have made false allegations so I don’t doubt it happens.
I was falsely accused of rape once