If all people are doing is just deciding on Bill Cosby’s reputation, they can do that without deciding whether he committed rape. They can decide on his reputation based on any number of things. IMO, Bill Cosby is an old, irrelevant comedian who wasn’t much in the spotlight before this.
But people are using this case as the icon and lightning rod for generalizing on all rape cases as you can see in even sven’s comment. Those two discussions are different, yet they’re being overlaid on each other as though they can’t be separated.
Let’s say there’s a place on the internet where people could go and tell their stories and name their rapist on decades-old allegations. No one checks these stories.
Then a national publication gathers up all the allegations on a periodic basis and prints them.
If your name shows up in there, everyone can see it. Your reputation could be ruined and employers can fire you on that basis. There’s no way to defend yourself because the allegations can be vague and very old. Even if they’re pretty specific charges, you might not have the resources to investigate or prove anything.
Would you be advocating that? Because I think that’s a possible extension of what you’re suggesting. I’m not seeing that as an improvement for women’s rights because it might make allegations of rape victims seem less serious when they can be made so casually but can inflict so much potential damage.