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An anonymous and totally unsubstantiated account on twitter like this one compels any action whatsoever?
I assert that we have a responsibility to remain agnostic on anonymous, totally unsubstantiated charges of the sort made by "IWas17HeWas36". Even though they are written in a way that personally, I find very compelling and believable. There is a huge difference between plausible, likely and indisputable.
The charges don't prove anything. And they don't cost anything. It's very dangerous to allow allegations that meet both those criteria be the standard for ANY kind of action.
Imagine if festivals were to kick Tool off the bill over this. I expect we'd see anonymous accounts pop up leveling similar allegations against the organizers of those festivals. Would the existence, in that hypothetical situation, of the highly visible public vendetta by Tool fans be enough to mitigate those similar accusations against the organizers, while Maynard's accusations remained "credible" (merely because no vendetta against Maynard was known)? What about if similar charges against the organizers were made 5 years down the line, or 10? Would we attach a gradually decaying statistical likelihood the allegations were false, as the known scandal receded from memory? This is INCREDIBLY arbitrary.
I submit to you that by allowing oracular, uncorroborated messages like these to control our actions in any way, we would be giving over our decision-making to an arbitrary and infinitely game-able system that is even more potentially callous and vicious than the, yes sadly present one where oftentimes rapes go unpunished, and where in order to have any likelihood of achieving justice, victims must undergo an often humiliating and taxing ordeal.
Cliffs: In a lot of circumstances, it can be better to operate in a way that potentially lets a lot of guilty people go free, than to punish innumerable innocent persons. This seems like one of those times.
*EDIT* I haven’t yet seen any of the similar accounts atruhead referred to. If they differ from the initial claims in that they aren’t entirely both anonymous and unsubstantiated, obviously the above may not apply to them. It has never been my goal to defend Maynard or deny he might be a rapist (something I think virtually all men can be). I simply think we need better rules about what to believe in the anonymous internet age.
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