How would you feel about a public database for sexually transgressive behavior?

[sleestak]

My roommate, before he passed away, ran a website for escorts safety. It was a subscription site, broken up by location, where escorts could post information about clients who either ripped them off, no showed, got violent, etc. That way escorts could go check and see if their client had a history before any meeting.

He’d get angry letters and emails from men who were mentioned on the site demanding the info be taken down. The site was indexed by Google. He would take the info down if there was some sort of proof that the incident didn’t happen or that it was a fake report. Otherwise, the info stayed up. He got sued a few times, always won thanks to the CDA. He also worked with the FBI and local police from time to time. A few guys ended up in jail, one of the guys he talked to the FBI about ended up on national news when he was arrested.

Before he died he was working on a plan to expand to dating websites like Match.

There was some abuse of the site. He would remove posts if they were proven to be false but that is a hard thing to do. IIRC, occasionally people would get court orders to have him provide info on the user who posted so that they could sue that user. I think once he had to remove some posts do to a lawsuit against the poster.

It seemed to work pretty well. However a) it was subscription b) had a small set of users and c) he was working towards going fully private and removing indexing so info wouldn’t show up in google/bing/etc searches.

The reason to take it private? Remove the incentive for false reports.

My roommate and I had quite a few conversations about the usefulness of the site vs. the potential for abuse. For the site he ran, the number of false reports was pretty small. But it also had a small, specialized user base that, due to the nature of their work, was a prime target for being attacked/robbed/whatever. The short answer was we never figured out a good answer to the abuse angle for large scale implementations.

He passed away and now I own the domain. No idea what to do with it. Keeping the site running was too time intensive and it required a full on rebuild. I may, if I can find the time, rebuild it and make it more automated. It made decent money, just took a lot of effort.

Slee

[Two_Many_Cats]

I have no problem with it. Of course, we could’ve had any number of serial rapists off the streets now if police departments or state’s attorney offices would’ve bothered to analyze the DNA in thousands of rape kits left untouched.

But who cares? So many women are lying whores anyway, that a national database would just be another way to destroy innocent men’s lives, right?

.

[Robot_Arm]

@Maastricht

I’m on a dating site. That particular site offers women the opportunity to hand out digital “roses” to a guy if the chat with them has been pleasant and polite. I was more likely to chat with a guy with roses in his profile, and I was also quick to give out roses if an chat had been pleasant. Men didn’t know if they had been given roses. So that was sort of the same system, but then on the positive side.

I’ve spent more time on dating sites than I care to admit, but I’ve not heard of this. Could I ask which site this is on? If you’re worried about revealing that info, feel free to decline; or send me a PM if you’d rather not share it with everyone.

I hope my conduct on dating sites has been pleasant and polite, and that I wouldn’t run afoul of such reviews, but I do find the idea slightly troubling. It sounds like it’s anonymous and the men don’t know if they’ve been awarded roses and by whom; but do they even know the feature exists? Maybe I am on that site and don’t know about it. And would everyone be okay with extending this to both genders; let the men also post some sort of reward after interacting with a woman?

[Guinastasia]

@Omar_Little

You mean like Yelp?

Yelp isn’t accusing people of committing crimes, though.

[Green_Bean]

Jeebus. This woukd be like taking a blowtorch to your kitchen cabinets because you saw a roach.

The current system is deeply flawed. The solution is not to create a parallel system that woukd be even worse.

@skyr

I don’t think this could ever work. What do you think would happen if there was a website where anyone you’ve met could leave an anonymous review about you? Chances are that anyone who doesn’t like you would write something negative about you regardless of whether it was true or not. The ratings would quickly become meaningless.

This concept was explored in the Black Mirror episode Nosedive - except the ratings were far from meaningless.

I personally found it to be the scariest of all episodes.

[Maastricht]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

You think coeds are going to look up guys they meet while drinking at frat parties? That’s not how these things work. Drill-Mecum was able to rape a bunch of women with impunity because college students tend to find themselves in dangerous situations (which is not in any way to suggest that his victims were at fault).

No. But they would look the guy up when they had an unpleasant experience and wonder if they were they only one. I have no problem with the database being behind a paywall where the women are known to the administator. Like in Sleestak’s very, very interesting example. ( I hope you resurrect the site, Sleestak, or at least sell the rights to someone who might resurrect it. Do sex workers in the US have some kind of union/professional organisation?)

@Shodan

Would this be accessible to prospective employers? Credit card companies?

Would it be a bad thing if an HR person, after complaints, could look up that person to see if there is a pattern? And as for credit companies; I don’t think they would bother. Such gray area harasment is very, very unlikely to result in a guy being accused and losing his job. A rational credit card company would not care.
Also, there’s a strong case to be made that the dynamics now are very, very much skweed in the other direction, and all push against women reporting harrassment. It would not be a bad thing if that imbalance was tilted a little bit less in the old direction.

@Robot_Arm

I’ve spent more time on dating sites than I care to admit, but I’ve not heard of this. Could I ask which site this is on? … It sounds like it’s anonymous and the men don’t know if they’ve been awarded roses and by whom; but do they even know the feature exists? … And would everyone be okay with extending this to both genders; let the men also post some sort of reward after interacting with a woman?

It’s Lexa, a Dutch site, and only Dutch, and I’m no longer on it. Men don’t know that they are awarded roses; I believe the roses also expire after a while. There is no similar system for men to judge interactions with women; I asked a few men. I think that is unfair, too! But OTOH, that it would have pitfalls for men angry about rejection. How would you think such a reward system for women would play out?
(I admire men to keep on keeping on on such sites, in spite of all the rejection they have to endure. OK Cupid said some interesting things about it, in the sense that most men only message the women overwhelmed with messages; and that they would have a much, much higher chance of success if they went for older, or in other ways less conveniently popular/attractive women. The Case For An Older Woman. How dating preferences change with age | by OkCupid | Medium OK Cupid Data on Sex, Desirability, and Age - Sociological Images

[UltraVires]

@Maastricht

No. But they would look the guy up when they had an unpleasant experience and wonder if they were they only one. I have no problem with the database being behind a paywall where the women are known to the administator.

But as noted above, a man could sue “Jane Doe” for libel and then subpoena the website operator to release Jane Doe’s identity.

I find it frightening that so many want this type of anonymous stuff being permitted.

[Maastricht]

Ultravires, Sleestak’s example describes how this could work out. He describes how his site handled legal complaints. You could even think of a subscription site, not for escorts, but for ( college) HR personnel.

Frankly, I find it frightening that nobody seems really interested in just solving this damn problem.

[Jackmannii]

@Maastricht

Then I have two questions:

1. How could abuse of such a system be prevented ?
   I can think of a few safeguards. The accusers name needs to be know to the (o)perators of the database; she needs to have gone to the police ( but if the police decides there’s not enough evidence, that might still be enough evidence for this website.

Right - because the folks running the database would be beyond reproach and not be constrained by any agenda. And no one ever makes a false police report.

If such a database goes live and people lose jobs or are victims of violence as a result of bogus allegations, well, we’ve got to think of the greater good.

[Robot_Arm]

@Maastricht

It’s Lexa, a Dutch site, and only Dutch, and I’m no longer on it. Men don’t know that they are awarded roses; I believe the roses also expire after a while. There is no similar system for men to judge interactions with women; I asked a few men. I think that is unfair, too! But OTOH, that it would have pitfalls for men angry about rejection. How would you think such a reward system for women would play out?

I think the particular frustrations of a dating site are a bit different for men than they are for women, but the rules should be the same for both genders. If women are concerned about men who are angry at rejection, why shouldn’t men have the same concern when they turn down a woman? I had a great first date a while ago, and we talked about where to go for our second date; and then she sent me a message on the site saying she wasn’t interested. I had one woman who contacted me, and then after I posted a picture of myself I never heard from her again. Neither gender is immune from getting hurt.

However, the way you describe the system, you either award a rose or you don’t. There’s no opportunity to give negative feedback; it’s either positive or nothing. It doesn’t sound like there’s a way for a vindictive person to abuse the system and use it to disparage someone. I don’t see how there’s a way for someone who’s angry about rejection (man or woman) to use the roses as some sort of revenge.

(I admire men to keep on keeping on on such sites, in spite of all the rejection they have to endure. OK Cupid said some interesting things about it, in the sense that most men only message the women overwhelmed with messages; and that they would have a much, much higher chance of success if they went for older, or in other ways less conveniently popular/attractive women. The Case For An Older Woman. How dating preferences change with age | by OkCupid | Medium OK Cupid Data on Sex, Desirability, and Age - Sociological Images

Men probably would have a higher likelihood of getting a reply if they didn’t only contact women who are young and conventionally attractive, but so what? I expect that women also choose to reply to attractive, successful men. Both genders are selective in who they want to date, it seems unfair to only call out men for it.

[UltraVires]

@Maastricht

Ultravires, Sleestak’s example describes how this could work out. He describes how his site handled legal complaints. You could even think of a subscription site, not for escorts, but for ( college) HR personnel.

Frankly, I find it frightening that nobody seems really interested in just solving this damn problem.

He didn’t describe any such thing. How do you keep a plaintiff from discovering this information in litigation? Do we have secret Star Chamber trials now?

What problem are we trying to solve? The ability to make anonymous accusations against someone, not publicly but to paying customers?

[TokyoBayer]

@Maastricht

Frankly, I find it frightening that nobody seems really interested in just solving this damn problem.

Seriously? People are pointing legitimate areas of concern and you are accusing them of not caring?

[Velocity]

@Maastricht

Frankly, I find it frightening that nobody seems really interested in just solving this damn problem.

Sounds like a Patriot Act false-dichotomy attitude. “If you don’t support this problematic solution, then you aren’t interested in solving terrorism.”

[Jasmine]

No way does this have a happy ending. It’s not even necessary to begin with. If you have questions about a person, you can run a background check on them and find out everything about them.