A Reddit thread circulating the Internet on Friday tells the “other side of the story” with accounts from rapists.
On Thursday, a Redditor started a thread soliciting comments from rapists by writing, “Reddit’s had a few threads about sexual assault victims, but are there any Redditors from the other side of the story?” According to a Jezebel report, the original Redditor also asked, “What were your motivations? Do you regret it?”More than 11,000 people have commented on the thread, with votes up and down split nearly even. One of Friday’s top comments came from a self-identified “post-college aged male” who admitted to raping “several women through use of coercion, alcohol, and other tactics over a course of 3 years.” He went on to write that he feels bad and has since changed his ways, adding that he’s now a “fervent volunteer in the community.” Some of the commenters explained that they thought the women they assaulted had “wanted it” or that women need to better protect themselves from uncontrollable men. Other commenters, not surprisingly, were horrified by what they read.
As the day went on the thread was filled with more comments from victims of rape and sexual assault, as well as stories from men who “almost” raped someone.
Reddit has long had a reputation for lacking credibility. For a long time, it’s been filled with memes and other viral content, but lately more legitimate and informed conversations have started on the site.
So will the people who claimed to have committed rape in the past ever be prosecuted due to this thread? Probably not.
Users have a right to free speech but there is a fine line between First Amendment rights and saying something incriminating. For law enforcement to go after people on Reddit who claim to have committed rape, their posts would have to be more factual (with names and dates, for example) to warrant investigators getting subpoenas to look into their backgrounds. As is, these Redditor’s admission are simply hearsay.
Should the commenters who admitted to rape on this thread be investigated by law enforcement? Tell us in the comments. (Mashable.com)
