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Should Aziz Ansari’s Accuser Be Exposed?
Over at TheDirty.com, the accuser and source of the Aziz Ansari story published at Babe has been identified. In the headline to the piece the woman is named, and the writer explains “[she] does not deserve to be anonymous.”
For someone who writes their opinion online for a living, and has penned many articles about the #MeToo movement and sexual abuse and harassment over the years, I find myself at a loss. Should Ansari’s accuser be publicly named and should she experience the same firestorm she inflicted upon a guy she went on one bad date with?
Immediately after the story broke, I wrote here about how outrageous the story was at the time; which amounted to revenge porn after a bad date. Writing for The Federalist, my colleague and friend Mary Katharine Ham quoted Caitlin Flanagan, who called it “3000 words of revenge porn” in The Atlantic:
The clinical detail in which the story is told is intended not to validate her account as much as it is to hurt and humiliate Ansari. Together, the two women may have destroyed Ansari’s career, which is now the punishment for every kind of male sexual misconduct, from the grotesque to the disappointing.
Ham and I discussed it at length on our podcast LadyBrains that week as well.
But does all of this mean she deserves to be not only exposed, but also exposed to the hot white light of social media scrutiny that this kind of story generates? That’s where I’m torn.
The precedent is a frightening one for any woman who may be considering coming forward. In order to feel safe coming out against predatory men, many women feel it necessary to have the safety, for personal and professional reasons, to do so anonymously.
It’s a fine line to walk: on one hand, a man is entitled to face his accuser and attempt to clear his name, but on the other, women need to feel as though they can come forward without becoming known as a victim their entire lives.
Once upon a time, journalistic standards would have given men some of this opportunity. Journalists would have done their due diligence to verify stories and give men the opportunity to respond with a comment. That was then, and now we have stories like the Duke lacrosse case, Rolling Stone, and now Babe.
And what about Babe, anyway? Also writing at the Atlantic, Flanagan raked the small site over the coals. She writes,
Like many news and information websites created by young women, Babe publishes many stories on sexual assault. But unlike most other such outfits, it also runs stories about the pleasure of rape fantasies. Feminists have fought for years to keep the notion of rape fantasy as far as it could possibly get from actual reports of sexual assault. But those were feminists who gave a [expletive]. Babe gleefully, witlessly runs angry pieces about sexual assault as part of the same cotton-candy pink, swirling galaxy as the ones that describe the pleasures of fantasizing about rape. The site has devoted many pixels to explaining to readers how enjoyable and common these fantasies are.
It’s a tough question to answer; if Ansari’s accuser should have been exposed, and one I don’t have an answer to. Clearly, Babe was at fault for publishing her account, but given what we now know of them, it’s clear that their Ansari hitjob was far from the worst thing they’ve ever published. With journalism where it is; where anyone can publish anything, should it also be fair game for those who wish to expose those who peddle in revenge porn masked as a compelling accounting of sexual misconduct or assault?
Published in Entertainment
Is it common knowledge that it’s possible to file a report with the police but request they not press charges? I have done that, for the reason you describe.
Disagree. The woman does have a right to privacy. Up until she abrogates that right by making it public. It is now no longer a private bit of dirty laundry. The rest of us now have an interest in discouraging her behavior and revealing the woman’s name is our recourse.
Exposed by whom?
If Ansari wants to file a defamation suit then the answer is that her name will be exposed as a matter of law.
Any other government attempts to violate her privacy are out of line.
Ethical reporters won’t track down and publish her name.
But they don’t have to, there are all sorts of people with the savvy to find her and an entire internet to publish on – the same internet she used.
Once the champions of exposure have served up her name, the ethical reporters spike it over the net.
‘Should’ hardly enters into it.
My gut feeling is that the outing of an anonymous person who has written something objectionable may appeal in cosmic justice-y kind of way, once you factor in the sheer power of a weaponized internet’s Worst Person in the World Death Beam the punishment is too outsized for a mortal human being.
OTOH, Nierman’s kind of cute in a girl-next-door way and as a netizen I have the right to a jpeg of whatever I search for.
Isn’t that a two way street though? If you expect privacy then respect privacy. Why are we talking about Nierman as if she was just randomly caught up in some injustice? This all in her lap, of her own conscious doing.
Well, I’ll happily wave my interest to know about the woman. If this kind of thing becomes common, then we can deal with it. In the meantime, it all feels voyeuristic and prurient to me — a private mess elevated to viral status by virtue of it containing celebrity sex.
That isn’t the interest I was referring to. The rest of us have an interest in discouraging the behavior consisting of making private things public.
No, I understood your point. And, if this happened a lot, I’d probably agree. But the question of the original post was whether or not this particular woman should have her name published. Given how rare this is, and how stupid and petty the whole matter is, I’ll stand by my original answer in #5: No, not unless Ansari feels like doing it.
Unfair as it is, Ansari is a public figure and she wasn’t (I suppose she is now).
OK, but Nierman’s story wasn’t public. She chose to make it so. Why isn’t her default privacy forfeit – by her own action?
Abby Nierman made herself into a public figure.
The NYT had an excellent piece on her attack. She had a bad date, and assumed that the man was a mind-reader.
Yes.
I don’t think that is common knowledge, and it should be.
For the same reason that if you were to post something a lot of people found objectionable, said post was to make it to the Main Feed and from there all over the internet, and your post became a huge cultural flashpoint I wouldn’t want you to be doxxed. You are Ed G. in Chicago on Ricochet and not a complete name, address, and work telephone number for a reason.
Nierman isn’t the first star-redactor to ‘kiss’ and tell and she won’t be the last. Her exposure can be considered poetic justice, First Testament justice, or just desserts.
But not plain old justice. At least not the way I understand it.
There’s a big difference between objectionable and personally ruinous though.
Plus, it’s not as if she’s being unfairly caught up in the vagaries of modern life. She chose to make the private public.
As far as justice, I make no claims to any of the flavors you mention. But I do claim that being able to make publicly ruinous claims about someone without having to face examination is plain old unjust. I don’t know how the account can be examined without knowing who is making them.
Anyone can now anonymously slander anyone else. There are no gatekeepers who credibly can vet these allegations.
I think that anyone who blackens someone else’s name extra-judicially should be held liable for their words. Either handle things using the tools provided by the legal system, or stay quiet and move on with your life.
Whether or not Ansari really is a slimeball is irrelevant. Did he commit a crime? That is the standard, and it should be judged in the legal system, not the court of public opinion.
But since the Court of Public Opinion is always in session, exposing the anonymous accuser is the only way to hold them liable.
Please allow me to restate/reframe: does anyone here believe that he is personally entitled to the name of the woman who made the anonymous post regarding sex and the accompanying RoEs with Ansari? If so, why?
No, I don’t think I am personally entitled to this information. But the accuser is not entitled to her anonymity either. So if someone chooses to expose her, I do not find that wrong. She chose to change the RoEs, and should not be surprised that the new rules apply to her also.
Yes, especially if he files suit officially. I think so because I believe that the right to confront your accuser, cross examine, and a presumption of innocence are not merely legal concepts. I believe those are general principles of just treatment, and Lord knows the courts don’t have a monopoly on that.
But I also agree with Patrick above: she is not entitled to anonymity once she chose to pierce the veil which I hope protects us all.