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> Occasionally a guilty person will be acquitted, and it would really be best not to also punish an innocent as a result of that.

That's not how it works, is it? it is not a battle where someone has to be guilty - either the accused or the accuser. Someone can be acquitted without anyone lying, or making false statements, or anything else. Just a few examples: insufficient evidence to prosecute, contradictory timelines.

It is bizarre that anyone thinks that this could be the system - get a conviction or suffer a conviction yourself.

There is a spectrum between provable accusations and demonstrably false claims that includes uncertainty, doubt and poor evidence. It isn't like going all-in in poker!



Ok, that's fair, I was being a bit over dramatic.

However, I still think that the kind of 'eye for an eye' approach proposed by the comment I was relying to would have a non-trivial, negative impact on the reporting of crimes. Just as guilty people can be acquitted, innocent people can be found guilty (even if it's not automatic), and this means that the accuser is exposing themselves to risk.

Fundamentally, no one should ever have to worry about the consequences of reporting a crime.


>no one should ever have to worry about the consequences of reporting a crime

The rub is, they should have to worry about the consequences, if they're making a bad-faith false report. They should have to worry a lot, because they themselves are committing a wrong by reporting a false crime in such a way.

It's an incredibly hard problem, though.


> because they themselves are committing a wrong

I think you mean crime, not wrong.


Trying to deprive someone of their liberty is a crime. If the report is proven false then the only crime is the false report.




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