Women are posting the names of men they claim are rapists on Twitter. They are using the using the account #UtahRapists. The hashtag, collects tweets and makes them searchable by name so that anyone can look up men. It appears similar to an an old website called Dont Date Him Girl It.com. That site publicly listed the names of cheating men until it was discovered that many of the women posting names were themselves cheats & frauds. The Dont Date Him Girl stopped publicly listing men's names after numerous threatened lawsuits.
The Twitter account #UtahRapists has no real way of proving the accuracy of the rape accusations against eh men in its list. Women could be falsely accusing someone of rape without any evidence. Additionally, someone may have committed assault or harassment, but not rape, and still be labeled a rapist by the twitter account. There have already been a few men who claimed they were falsely accused of rape by the account.
Paul C. Burke, a Utah attorney who has been hired by some of the men claiming they are victims of false accusations by #UtahRapists stated: "No person should be branded with a scarlet letter ‘R’ by an anonymous Twitter mob". “There must be accountability for actual rapists, but it should come through our criminal justice system that begins with a presumption of innocence for the accused and operates under the principle of due process for all.”
The #UtahRapists Twitter accounts has admitted taking some names off their lists, saying that they’ve since found evidence that the accused didn’t rape anyone. But thats not good enough. The false rape accuser should be named so that other men can avoid her.
A new account should be created #UtahFalseRapeAccusers. Legal action should also be taken against false rape accusers.
