I did not want to show the world the sadness in my eyes.

Bobblehats · 26-02-2020 10:43am

seamus wrote: »

How the fvck did this degenerate into "I wonder if she's lying”

Well I don’t see any great sadness there, do you?

That’s right. She failed the eye detector test

Millicently · 26-02-2020 10:52am

Sorry but I'm not buying into this. Maybe it's true maybe it's not. Some people want to believe this #ibelieveher but I think it's naive and dangerous. Has she a new album to launch soon? The photograph that I saw of her with the 'sadness in my eyes' looked very phony and staged, I've seen sadder looking sandwiches. If it's true I feel sorry for her, but at this stage I've just heard too much fakeness and it smacks of jumping on the Flack death bandwagon.

seamus · 26-02-2020 10:54am

Instagram is a bit like Facebook except that it's not meant for conversations.

Twitter is for angry conversations, Facebook puts conversations front and centre, but Instagram makes it all about the post. People can comment, but the comments are left in the background, mostly hidden from sight.

As a result, the urge to post nasty comments is lessened, and people generally can't share the picture or the comments with others. This is why you never really hear about "storms" blowing up on Instagram. It's not that kind of platform.

For the most part Instagram's engagement model can be summarised as "Like my picture or piss off".

This makes it the ideal place for "Press Release" style things like this, because the poster isn't starting a conversation, they're just making a statement.

anewme · 26-02-2020 11:00am

seamus wrote: »

This makes it the ideal place for "Press Release" style things like this, because the poster isn't starting a conversation, they're just making a statement.

She is quoted on the BBC as saying she will answer questions in due course.

The biggest step in something like this, is admitting it, openly, when you are in a place to do that, which she clearly is now.

Then taking a step back to move forward. Once its out, its out and she can hopefully put whatever she is dealing with in the past.

El_Duderino 09 · 26-02-2020 11:03am

Millicently wrote: »

Sorry but I'm not buying into this. Maybe it's true maybe it's not. Some people want to believe this #ibelieveher but I think it's naive and dangerous. Has she a new album to launch soon? The photograph that I saw of her with the 'sadness in my eyes' looked very phony and staged, I've seen sadder looking sandwiches. If it's true I feel sorry for her, but at this stage I've just heard too much fakeness and it smacks of jumping on the Flack death bandwagon.

Nobody is asking you to buy anything.

The bit in bold is perfect and it would have been a good post if you left it there. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not.

You assessing the sadness in her eyes is pure nonsense and cheapens what is (or should be) a fairly serious topic.

Maybe it's true, maybe it's not.

Tacitus Kilgore · 26-02-2020 11:05am

Jesus boards can be a right cesspit, some right fuckin arseholes in here already.

You can even predict who's going to roll in and all :rolleyes:

eviltwin · 26-02-2020 11:05am

Millicently wrote: »

Sorry but I'm not buying into this. Maybe it's true maybe it's not. Some people want to believe this #ibelieveher but I think it's naive and dangerous. Has she a new album to launch soon? The photograph that I saw of her with the 'sadness in my eyes' looked very phony and staged, I've seen sadder looking sandwiches. If it's true I feel sorry for her, but at this stage I've just heard too much fakeness and it smacks of jumping on the Flack death bandwagon.

That's an old photo.

LineOfBeauty · 26-02-2020 11:07am

Some interesting reactions, with the more extremes ones ranging from basically saying the gall of her thinking that we care to outright nah didn't happen. Any wonder why women sometimes feel it's not worth it or that people will feel it's somehow their fault for something like this happening.

sbsquarepants · 26-02-2020 11:10am

Deleted User wrote: »

Glad I am not the only one to have scepticism. No mention anywhere of reporting it to the police so assuming she never went to them.

.

Ah come on now ffs!

I wouldn't go convicting some poor bastard on her word alone, but it seems a crazy way to reintroduce yourself to the limelight. I'm sure she could have just picked up the phone and got back on telly if she wanted!

El_Duderino 09 · 26-02-2020 11:11am

eviltwin wrote: »

That's an old photo.

I suppose they can fall back on criticising her for using Snapchat. "What a dope for getting raped and talking about it ON INSTAGRAM".

As if looking for ways to have a pop at her is the first thing some people think of when they hear a lass say she was raped. That's genuinely fascination to see that's how some people's minds work.

Tacitus Kilgore · 26-02-2020 11:13am

Deleted User wrote: »

Glad I am not the only one to have scepticism. No mention anywhere of reporting it to the police so assuming she never went to them.

I am increasingly suspicious of celebs revealing via social media that they were the victim of crimes. It is too easy to get attention, sympathy, publicity and does not require any evidence or verification.

I think the first step would be the legal route if you are the victim of a crime as serious as this. Name names. Let the authorities investigate.

Where are you getting this from? Are you certain it hasn't been investigated? Or even completely dealt with? Or even what jurisdiction it happened in?

No, you've no idea - all you have to go off is the same instagram screenshot as the rest of us but decide she's lying right off the bat.

No wonder women feel they can't report/say anything.

Idle Passerby · 26-02-2020 11:15am

I find the suspicious reactions here really disheartening. The way I read this is a public figure dropped out of the limelight several years ago, someone decides to ask her why, she responds saying "well I went through a very traumatic experience, which I have now processed and moved on from. I'm willing to talk about it further if your interested."

It's fairly cynical to jump to the conclusion she's lying. Sexual assault is incredibly common after all, it's not remotely surprising that sometimes public figures are victim to it, just the same as ordinary nobodies are. Everyone processes horrible experiences differently.

I don't get why people who are completely unconnected feel it's their right to decide how someone they've never met should present their experience or how their recovery from it should look on the outside.

For all anyone knows this was reported to the authorities. Just because that's not mentioned in the post doesn't mean it didn't happen.

magic_murph · 26-02-2020 11:17am

calling a Jussie Smollett

Raconteuse · 26-02-2020 11:32am

Jaysus the people who outright don't believe her. It really has become fashionable.

Although while I believe it, I don't understand telling the media about it.

El_Duderino 09 · 26-02-2020 11:34am

Raconteuse wrote: »

Jaysus the people who outright don't believe her. It really has become fashionable.

Although while I believe it, I don't understand telling the media about it.

How can you believe it? You have so little evidence.

Outright believing it is exactly as illogical as outright disbelieving it.

Tacitus Kilgore · 26-02-2020 11:55am

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

How can you believe it? You have so little evidence.

Outright believing it is exactly as illogical as outright disbelieving it.

Well I didn't believe it before I heard about / read her statement, and with nothing to counter I have no reason not to.

See that's the thing, seems to be cool to automatically say "i don't believe you" when a woman notes that she has been sexually assaulted.

magic_murph · 26-02-2020 12:02pm

Too many people craving attention these days that why so many people are skeptical and rightly so.

El_Duderino 09 · 26-02-2020 12:03pm

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

Well I didn't believe it before I heard about / read her statement, and with nothing to counter I have no reason not to.

See that's the thing, seems to be cool to automatically say "i don't believe you" when a woman notes that she has been sexually assaulted.

I completely agree its seen by some as edgy to say they don't believe her. But I can't believe anything with so little evidence.

My approach is, if someone’s tells me they were raped I’d treat them with the compassion as if they definitely were raped but I’d also want to verify whether it’s actually true before I’d believe it.

In practice, if you believe it just because she said it happened then that prejudices your view of the person who is accused. And that's not fair based on so little evidence.

So I'd be inclined to treat her as if it happened but that wouldn't mean I'd just believe it happened without enough evidence to believe it. And this is not enough evidence to believe it happened

retro:electro · 26-02-2020 12:04pm

I don’t know why people are so quick to dismiss this as bullshlt. She hasn’t accused anyone in particular, she hasn’t named any names and there is no counter story that refutes her version.

She is just explaining why she has spent some time away from the spotlight after something violent and distressing happened to her. Calling it out as bull**** for absolutely no reason is quite bizarre. We have no reason to believe she would lie about this.

To automatically assume she is lying is to believe that things like this can’t and don’t happen in the world. And we know that they do.

Tacitus Kilgore · 26-02-2020 12:11pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

I completely agree its seen by some as edgy to say they don't believe her. But I can't believe anything with so little evidence.

My approach is, if someone’s tells me they were raped I’d treat them with the compassion as if they definitely were raped but I’d also want to verify whether it’s actually true before I’d believe it.

In practice, if you believe it just because she said it happened then that prejudices your view of the person who is accused. And that's not fair based on so little evidence.

So I'd be inclined to treat her as if it happened but that wouldn't mean I'd just believe it happened without enough evidence to believe it. And this is not enough evidence to believe it happened

You're not wrong, but is there enough anything to say it didn't?

This is the problem, as soon as a woman says anything - she has not made a single accusation by the way just noted that she went through something horrific - people feel the need to say "well, you could be lying" without a single shred of anything contrary.

seamus · 26-02-2020 12:16pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

In practice, if you believe it just because she said it happened then that prejudices your view of the person who is accused.

Well, it does if a named person has been accused. It doesn't if nobody has been accused.

If someone of either gender comes out and reveals that they were raped/attacked without going into specifics, I will tend towards believing them unless they have past form to cause me to doubt them.

Because there's very little to gain. Nobody becomes rich or famous off the back of making a rape allegation. There is a minor subset of sociopaths who appreciate the short-lived attention, but they're rare.

So if someone like Duffy, who I've no reason to doubt, reveals that she went through this, then by default I'm erring on the side of believing her because the act of making the statement is in itself evidence that it's probably true.

Obviously that "if they said it, it's probably true", doesn't hold universally, but for such a serious allegation the number of false statements is a tiny percentage of all statements. Thus the balance of probabilities is such that she's probably telling the truth.

El_Duderino 09 · 26-02-2020 12:17pm

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

You're not wrong, but is there enough anything to say it didn't?

This is the problem, as soon as a woman says anything - she has not made a single accusation by the way just noted that she went through something horrific - people feel the need to say "well, you could be lying" without a single shred of anything contrary.

Of course there's not enough to say that it didn't happen. There's absolutely no disconfirming evidence that I know of.

There's just a tiny bit of evidence that it did happen and that's not enough to believe anything.

El_Duderino 09 · 26-02-2020 12:20pm

seamus wrote: »

Well, it does if a named person has been accused. It doesn't if nobody has been accused.

If someone of either gender comes out and reveals that they were raped/attacked without going into specifics, I will tend towards believing them unless they have past form to cause me to doubt them.

Because there's very little to gain. Nobody becomes rich or famous off the back of making a rape allegation. There is a minor subset of sociopaths who appreciate the short-lived attention, but they're rare.

So if someone like Duffy, who I've no reason to doubt, reveals that she went through this, then by default I'm erring on the side of believing her because the act of making the statement is in itself evidence that it's probably true.

Obviously that "if they said it, it's probably true", doesn't hold universally, but for such a serious allegation the number of false statements is a tiny percentage of all statements. Thus the balance of probabilities is such that she's probably telling the truth.

Why believe anything without enough evidence? Why not just say "I don't have enough evidence to know one way or the other"?

And surely you acknowledge the evidence we have is very small. It's just one person's say so.

But back to the first line of your response. So you're now inclined to believe her so what will you think of the accused if she makes an accusation against a person? If you believe her, then you're almost certainly inclined to believe the person did it. And that's just not right based on so little evidence.

Tacitus Kilgore · 26-02-2020 12:21pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

There's just a tiny bit of evidence that it did happen and that's not enough to believe anything.

And that's all there often is when it comes to a sexual assault claim - her word against his & the masses.

Again, 'tis little wonder women decide to say nothing, rather than get dragged through the mud.

El_Duderino 09 · 26-02-2020 12:26pm

Tacitus Kilgore wrote: »

And that's all there often is when it comes to a sexual assault claim - her word against his & the masses.

Again, 'tis little wonder women decide to say nothing, rather than get dragged through the mud.

No there is not just the accuser's word and the accused's word. There's a legal process and a court case and a trial and a verdict.

So there's absolutely no need for me to make a decision on belief when there's almost no evidence. Anyone who actively believes (or disbelieves) anything based on so little evidence might be a total dope if they apply that standard to everything.

As I've said re people reporting rape "My approach is: if someone’s tells me they were raped I’d treat them with the compassion as if they definitely were raped but I’d also want to verify whether it’s actually true before I’d believe it". And that's how I think the legal system should treat them too.

seamus · 26-02-2020 12:48pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

And surely you acknowledge the evidence we have is very small. It's just one person's say so.

Absolutely. But one person's say so against nothing else, is already stacking it in their favour. We don't forensically examine all statements for truthfulness. The reality is that we as a society generally give all statements the benefit of the doubt unless we have reason to believe otherwise.

We couldn't function as a society if we treated every statement as "neither true or false". You might assert that indeed you don't believe anything when presented with no evidence, but that's not correct. You do it all day, every day;

Your wife tells you, "some prick cut me off driving home". You don't sympathise while thinking in the back of your head, "I have no evidence for this statement therfore I will remain neutral on it". You believe her, because the fact that she was inclined enough to tell you in the first place means it probably happened; that is, people in general don't just make up sh1t for no reason.

Even legally we do this: If I make a small claim against a business and they don't contest it, I will win. The veracity of my claim is not tested unless it conflicts with someone else's. Thus my claim is assumed to be truthful until contradicted.

So you're now inclined to believe her so what will you think of the accused if she makes an accusation against a person?

Then it's a different matter. It comes down to whatever conflicts arise between the two statements. The fact that I initially gave the statement the benefit of the doubt has no bearing on my willingness to re-examine it.

creditcarder · 26-02-2020 12:48pm

El_Duderino 09 wrote: »

I don’t believe her just because she said it. All we have is one person’s word. But I don’t disbelieve her either.

If someone’s tells me they were raped I’d treat them with the compassion as if they definitely were raped but I’d also want to verify whether it’s actually true before I’d believe it.

I wouldn't give sympathy or question if it was in person, I'd just let them talk and the story will come out or it wouldn't

Online though, I don't believe her but that's a knee jerk reaction of mine after me too :P

Edit: Eh, I don't believe her. It's too absurd imo.

El_Duderino 09 · 26-02-2020 1:03pm

seamus wrote: »

Absolutely. But one person's say so against nothing else, is already stacking it in their favour. We don't forensically examine all statements for truthfulness. The reality is that we as a society generally give all statements the benefit of the doubt unless we have reason to believe otherwise.

We couldn't function as a society if we treated every statement as "neither true or false". You might assert that indeed you don't believe anything when presented with no evidence, but that's not correct. You do it all day, every day;

Your wife tells you, "some prick cut me off driving home". You don't sympathise while thinking in the back of your head, "I have no evidence for this statement therfore I will remain neutral on it". You believe her, because the fact that she was inclined enough to tell you in the first place means it probably happened; that is, people in general don't just make up sh1t for no reason.

Even legally we do this: If I make a small claim against a business and they don't contest it, I will win. The veracity of my claim is not tested unless it conflicts with someone else's. Thus my claim is assumed to be truthful until contradicted.

Then it's a different matter. It comes down to whatever conflicts arise between the two statements. The fact that I initially gave the statement the benefit of the doubt has no bearing on my willingness to re-examine it.

We don't forensically examine everything we hear but that doesn't mean we believe everything we hear either. If there's nothing at stake then we just behave as though we believe but that's actually different than believing. If someone tells me it drizzled a bit yesterday, I take them at their word. But they could be mistaken, they could have mixed up the days, they could have meant it drizzled in another town they were in or I could have misunderstood them. But since I don't really care whether it drizzled or not and there's nothing at stake, then I don't bother to find out more.

When the stakes are higher then it absolutely makes sense to examine whether it's true or not. When someone says they were raped, I think that's a pretty high stakes claim. If you believe them just because they said it, then how can you give the person they accused, a fair hearing? or would you also believe the accused when they deny it just because they said so?

That's why I said I would treat the person as though they have ben raped, but I don't believe it just because they said it. That's just not enough evidence. The great news is that none of us have to know the answer to the question of whether Duffy was raped or not. And I for one, don't pretend to know one way or the other.

The idea that you don't allow your belief to colour new information, is naïve.

El_Duderino 09 · 26-02-2020 1:04pm

creditcarder wrote: »

I wouldn't give sympathy or question if it was in person, I'd just let them talk and the story will come out or it wouldn't

Online though, I don't believe her but that's a knee jerk reaction of mine after me too :P

Edit: Eh, I don't believe her. It's too absurd imo.

do you actively disbelieve her?

weldoninhio · 26-02-2020 1:04pm

Deleted User wrote: »

I think you are projecting extreme views onto me. I am not saying I disbelieve her story i just feel that for such a serious crime as this there would be one or two more details. It is just vague enough to have me feeling a bit sceptical.

It would seem vague if you haven't read it. She stated in her post that she had a very long chat with a journalist who will be reporting the full story. She wasn't vague about that. :rolleyes: You keep on being skeptical though.

I did not want to show the world the sadness in my eyes.

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