@mayintoronto

I hate to be "That Guy" but I would remind everyone that these are allegations in the form of a statement of claim, not a finding of fact in a court of law.

As far as I'm aware we do have a presumption of innocence in Canada.

Obviously the allegation is disturbing, but I will withhold my condemnation and won't be moving instances until such time as a finding of fact is made (or at least until we see some evidence to back up the claims).

As for "he's hosting it at home" as some kind of evidence of malice, there was a deliberate and public effort to get mstdn.ca off of "the cloud" and onto Canadian sovereign servers, so I feel like this is slandering someone with their good intentions.

I note, this is not a defence of his alleged actions, merely a reminder of our professed values.

@evdelen @mayintoronto

Are you his jailor?

I'm so tired of people pretending that "guilty in a court of law" is the only way we're allowed to have opinions about people's wrongdoing. Courts make findings about the guilt of someone in the eyes of the state justice system. I.e., the state and it's ability to imprison you is the ONLY entity that is bound to a court judgement.

So I'll say it clearly, it doesn't matter that a court hasn't made a finding yet, yes you're still allowed to have an opinion about someone's behaviour and have consequences for that.

To claim otherwise is nothing more than using a false claim (that ONLY a court can pass judgement) as justification for not having an opinion.

@danbrotherston @mayintoronto

The civil courts are a process (there hasn't been a criminal charge laid in the matter so let's set that aside for now).

The process is as follows:

The plaintiff files and serves a Statement of Claim, in other words The Allegation.

After that, the defendant files a Statement of Defense and/or a Counter Claim.

That second step hasn't happened yet.

Even if we accept your premise that it doesn't matter what the courts decide, don't you think it's fair to at least hear the other side of the story?

@evdelen @mayintoronto

Fair, yes, required, no. But it's entirely beside the point. If you seek to hold an opinion, (even if that opinion is "we should wait to decide") justifying that opinion by "the courts haven't decided", you are using a logical fallacy.

"I want to hear both sides of the argument" is a reasonable statement.

"The courts haven't adjudicated it so I am not allowed to have an opinion" isn't.

I recognize that you did add "(or at least until we see some evidence to back up the claims)" which is better than most people do, but it was still added as an aside, rather than the main point. You explicitly said you withhold your condemnation or moving instances until a finding of fact is made.

Frankly, I will admit that you're getting from me a lot of my frustration for frequently hearing this opinion regarding much worse and far clearer allegations, so maybe I'm a bit more frustrated by this, than is justified by the actual situation, but the fundamental point remains, this is a common logical fallacy that almost nobody recognizes.

@danbrotherston @mayintoronto

I think what we're doing right now is hashing out the meaning and/or emphasis of a parenthetical more then discussing the main point.

A parenthetical is a word, phrase, or clause inserted into a sentence to add non-essential information, clarification, or afterthoughts without altering the sentence’s basic meaning.

Perhaps you're correct that I should have put more emphasis on that point by not making it a parenthetical, but especially given your frank admission, I think we're mostly splitting hairs.

I agree with your overall premise that, yes, we don't *need* to wait until a court has made a decision to, ourselves, make a judgment.

My ultimate point with this situation, and I believe you'd agree with me given your frank admissions, is simply that we shouldn't rush to judgment based merely on an accusation, but that we should hold our judgment until we at least hear both sides of the story.