Dispatches/Sunday Times investigation: Russell Brand accused of rape and sexual assault

mancity2012_eamo said:
Thanks for the clarification.
Im probably more concerned with trial by media especially in the times we live in now with social media being so influential.
I think accusations of this nature follow you for the rest of your life regardless of the truth of them. Certainly in the high profile cases of miscarriages of justice in the seventies and eighties, I would argue that public opinion was swayed or indeed manipulated by the media and that danger is worse now if anything.

If I am reading you right, when you use the term social justice, you are talking about not merely people power, but the weight of opinion to have a crime investigated? That includes investigative journalism and programs of the nature of the CH4 made. Am I correct?

If so, I would agree that this weight of opinion can cause enough pressure to get the right thing done.
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Weight of opinion isn’t enough to have a crime investigated or prosecuted. It’s more about in the absence of a criminal case, there are other things people can use to make their own mind up on his guilt or innocence too, such as how he chooses to respond to the allegations or if he seeks defamation damages. The punative side to it to him isn’t just about whether he gets a custodial sentence at the end of it or not, it’s how much society shows it’s back to him too. He’s already had his agent drop him and shows postponed.

What you’d hope depending on what happens is that it then generates a discussion on how we get a point where people can feel more comfortable in coming forward and how we help get better support for them through the criminal justice system. Some of the responses to this already show just how far we’ve got to go on that front though.
 
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Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese said:
Largely scale social / legal change should be just that though and not driven on the back of outrage caused by a few abusive celeb wrong un's.
For me I think we got the full measure of brands character and moral compass with the quite calculated cruelty of the 'prank call' to Andrew Sachs and public treatment of his grand daughter. That's why I shouldn't be on any future jury deciding his fate, and calls for 'social justice' we want on the back of a TV program at the weekend are wrong.
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Most of it is: “social justice” is the informal justice system playing out via collective social action.

People that have made it a dirty word or deride it as a menace are either ignorant of what it is, have been taken by the disinformation pushed by the grifters like Brand or governments that wish to minimise checks against it’s power, or are motivated by fear of being held to account by it (and not afraid of being held to account by formal justice systems because they can effectively control them or insulate themselves from them).

Many people have expressed valid, good faith concerns with elements of social justice, and those I have plenty of time for (and often agree with). However, anyone simply trying to make it the new “evil socialism” are ignorant, foolish, or malicious.

But, to your original bolded statement, sometimes in history social justice has been driven by outrage caused by a few abusive celeb wronguns… like monarchs of various states, for instance. ;-)
 
SebastianBlue said:
Most of it is: “social justice” is the informal justice system playing out via collective social action.

People that have made it a dirty word or deride it as a menace are either ignorant of what it is, have been taken by the disinformation pushed by the grifters like Brand or governments that wish to minimise checks against it’s power, or are motivated by fear of being held to account by it (and not afraid of being held to account by formal justice systems because they can effectively control them or insulate themselves from them).

Many people have expressed valid, good faith concerns with elements of social justice, and those I have plenty of time for (and often agree with). However, anyone simply trying to make it the new “evil socialism” are ignorant, foolish, or malicious.

But, to your original bolded statement, sometimes in history social justice has been driven by outrage caused by a few abusive celeb wronguns… like monarchs of various states, for instance. ;-)
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I agree, but I think this is social media justice rather than social justice, and if we go down that road we might as well let religion be in charge and have stonings.
 
Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese said:
I agree, but I think this is social media justice rather than social justice, and if we go down that road we might as well let religion be in charge and have stonings.
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This particular one I’d argue is the opposite of that and exactly what investigative journalists should be doing. Social media justice is a random account making an allegation and everyone else jumping on it. This is a four year investigation thoroughly researched with multiple parties and corroborating evidence that has been analysed by lawyers before publication. Brand was also given over a week to respond before that publication too for right of reply and opportunity to block it.
 
Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese said:
I agree, but I think this is social media justice rather than social justice, and if we go down that road we might as well let religion be in charge and have stonings.
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You and I agree about the pitfalls of social media within the context of social justice and society more generally. I think we have discussed that in various other threads.

But I contend that social media is now inherently part of social justice, it cannot be completely removed (nor should it), just as all communications mediums are. Books, newspapers, broadcast news, and the internet became inextricably linked with social justice over time. They were the means to formulate, disseminate, and debate new ideas, many of which were definitely not sponsored or condoned by the state. And, once more, in many cases, social media is one of the only means of enforcing social justice (think about nations where most or all media and physical public space is state-controlled and/or monitored).

We cannot put all of those genies back in their bottles without both horrific methods and, in many instances, horrible results.

So the problem is not social media, but how it is being used and misused, as was the case with books, newspapers, broadcast television, and now the internet.

Build something that can do good and someone will find a way to use it to do bad. That itself is not an argument against building anything, full stop.

The reaction may very well go to far with Brand, but I am not sure I see evidence of that just yet. If anything, most of the evidence right now points to very problematic (and a little scary) support of him and aggressive derision of the women based on troubling reasoning and conspiratorial thinking.
 
Julia Hartley- Brewer has spent all day tweeting excerpts from her Talk TV show defending Russell Brand. Julia Hartley-Brewer has a 17 year old daughter........

 
Crouchinho said:
I'm a bit lost with all this. These victims didn't go to the police and they all went to channel 4 and telegraph who decided they were doing their own criminal investigation? The police are now asking for the victims to come forwards.

There is no doubt that Brand is a bit shady, he's admitted having a sex and heroin addiction in the past, but the timing and documentary without trial/criminal case seems a bit odd to me.

The plod should be getting these women in ASAP
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They didn’t go to Channel 4. Or the Sunday Times. A journalist went looking to see if she could find any evidence after hearing multiple rumours that he was up to no good.

They found the women. Not the other way round. And the women agreed to tell their tales on the promise of anonymity.

It’s not up to the Sunday Times, the police, or anyone else to “get these women in.”

If they decide to report a crime to the police to investigate, now or at some point in the future, that’s entirely up to them.
 
Tuearts right boot said:
What, to find 4 women who'd been shagged by a well known show biz, self confessed sex addict.
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This is from the same channel that has a long running programme where people watch TV and another where people pick a partner on the size of their cock,clit, boobs.

If they just wanted views surely it would have been cheaper to just make more episodes of that instead of a multi year investigation for a 90 minute documentary on a Saturday night?
 
Stephen230 said:
They didn’t go to Channel 4. Or the Sunday Times. A journalist went looking to see if she could find any evidence after hearing multiple rumours that he was up to no good.

They found the women. Not the other way round. And the women agreed to tell their tales on the promise of anonymity.

It’s not up to the Sunday Times, the police, or anyone else to “get these women in.”

If they decide to report a crime to the police to investigate, now or at some point in the future, that’s entirely up to them.
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I believe complaints have since been made to the London police.
It was reported tonight on the RTE news.
 
Crouchinho said:
I'm a bit lost with all this. These victims didn't go to the police and they all went to channel 4 and telegraph who decided they were doing their own criminal investigation? The police are now asking for the victims to come forwards.

There is no doubt that Brand is a bit shady, he's admitted having a sex and heroin addiction in the past, but the timing and documentary without trial/criminal case seems a bit odd to me.

The plod should be getting these women in ASAP
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www.bbc.co.uk

Russell Brand: Met Police receive report of alleged sexual assault in 2003

Remaining dates of the star's live tour are postponed following the allegations.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
BlueHammer85 said:
I think a lot more allegations will come to light and the media with drip feed it.
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Yeah, there are a few clips/interviews from years ago that are resurfacing calling out Brand and his behaviour, so you can bet there are a lot more fresh ones to come. Like Party-gate they will keep the story alive by drip feeding it.
 
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