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Good Lord, I did see it. It was fine. Good job. Spelled most of the hard words right. I am NOT claiming Cosby's innocence, I'm talking about the incredible cheapening of the legal system and the culture that's going on when venues like Dr. Phil are sensationalizing charges without benefit of little things like sworn testimony and evidence. You know, old-fashioned stuff like that.

If you want a world where TMZ, and not a judge and jury, decides a person's fate, well, you're welcome to it!

If you didn't follow rocker Conor Oberst's ordeal earlier this year, it is a clear example of what I'm talking about, and this kind of thing is only getting worse. His accuser, who called herself a "superfan," made her accusation in the comments section of a website and it was all over the web in hours. There wasn't a shred of truth in it, but it wrecked this guy's life for MONTHS.

Here are some of the details in an article from Slate of all places:

In the emotionally charged conversation about rape, few topics are more fraught than that of false allegations. Consider some responses to the news that singer-songwriter Conor Oberst had been falsely accused of sexual assault. Last December a woman writing in the comments section of the website xoJane, going by the name Joanie Faircloth, claimed Oberst raped her when she was a teenager. The charge spread across the Internet; Oberst denied it and brought a libel suit against Faircloth when she refused to retract the story. In July she completely recanted, admitting that she had made it all up to get attention. Yet instead of showing sympathy for the ordeal of the musician—one known for being supportive of feminist issues—some chided him for taking legal action to defend himself against a false, career-damaging charge. In the Daily Dot, pop culture critic Chris Ostendorf decried the lawsuit, arguing that it could intimidate real victims of rape and that it promoted the idea of men as victims of false accusations—even though that’s exactly what Oberst was. After Oberst dropped the suit, Bustle’s Caroline Pate praised his decision and referred to the saga as “a roller-coaster for both parties”—treating the false accuser and the wrongly accused as morally equivalent—and called the revelation of Oberst’s innocence “crushingly disappointing.”

The rest of the article has a lot to say.

http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/doublex/2014/09/false_rape_accusations_why_must_be_pretend_they_never_happen.html