>> Studies sometimes claim that only 2 to 8 percent of rape allegations are false. Yet the rate for allegations that go ultra-viral in the media must be an order of magnitude higher than this.
Which implies that publicising a rape allegation makes it difficult to prosecute it successfully. The article suggests instead that feminist activists specifically select false allegations for publicity, which seems to assume that feminist activists possess some kind of ability to identify false allegations before they are prosecuted, or, indeed, to predict the outcome of a rape case with high accuracy. This is a very strong assumption and is the first thing that should be tested for consistency.
A simpler explanation is that rape allegations are more likely to lead to a failed prosecution, than they are likely to be false. If that was the case, we should expect to also observe a higher rate of failed prosecutions in general (i.e. regardless of publicity) than the rate of false rape allegations.
Though I can't find much relevant data for the United States (there is more for the UK) some sources suggest that such an effect can indeed be observed:
According to FBI statistics, out of 127,258 rapes reported to police departments in 2018, 33.4 percent resulted in an arrest.[13] Based on correlating multiple data sources, RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) estimates[30] that for every 1,000 rapes, 384 are reported to police, 57 result in an arrest, 11 are referred for prosecution, 7 result in a felony conviction, and 6 result in incarceration. This compares to a higher rate at every stage for similar crimes.
In other words, while 2-8% of rape allegations are false (according to the article), about 0.7% of rape allegations are successfully prosecuted. Such low rate of successful prosecutions would easily account for a high rate of publicised cases failing without the need of a specialised rape prosecution outcome prediction organ in feminist activists.
It takes two sides to make a war. I think the idea in the article is that one group reacts to the other group which forms a doubling down.
Dodging difficult questions is a skill most politicians seem to possess, in comparison.
So in the feminist example it's not that the feminists publicize a certain ambiguous case, it's that they double down when criticized by the out group. This strengthens the in group and amplifies the message.
Another issue is "what is publicity?" . What does it mean? Is getting something in the news or blogs or trending on twitter an aim in itself? How does the publicity machine work? What gets eyeballs, attention, etc?
Is activism a form of marketing primarily?
Is activism just a capitalist activity selling something? Is there a conflict with activist who want to change things. Is attention activism at odds with the political process, or could it be the primary way most people do politics?
> In other words, while 2-8% of rape allegations are false (according to the article),
When i read articles about rate of false rape allegations, the established percentage was really a percentage of rape allegations that were assessed 'false' by police during investigation. Most rape allegations were just lacking evidence on both sides (not enough evidence for prosecution, not enough evidence for rejecting as false), so they are not counted in this statistic.
It seems to me that no volition is needed on the part of journalists: journolists need sympathetic and sensational stories, but a sensational story is more likely than an average story to be false. (Extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence...). Combine this with the selection pressures on journolists for cutting corners in pursuit of a story/deadline, and you can pretty much guarantee that of any story type a disproportionate number of the biggest stories will be exaggerations published by unscrupulous reporting. This mechanic holds for every story type, not just rape.
The Wikipedia article [1] leads to [2], a RAINN page which links to
itself (quote: "Please visit
https://www.rainn.org/statistics/criminal-justice-system for full
citation."), and also (Footnote 1) to the following 'three' alleged
data sources [3, 4, 5]. Note that [4, 5] are exactly, letter for
letter, the same (!) in [2]! Why? Does that sound like serious science to you? Anyway, the RAINN page [2] then claims:
"This statistic combines information from several federal government
reports. Because it combines data from studies with different
methodologies, it is an approximation, not a scientific
estimate.". Let's look at the methodology in [3],
starting on Page 17:
> "The NCVS is a self-report survey that is administered from January
to December. Respondents are asked about the number and
characteristics of crimes they have experienced during the prior 6
months [...] . The survey collects information on threatened,
attempted, and completed crimes. Te survey collects data on crimes
both reported and not reported to police. Estimates in this report
include threatened, attempted, and completed crimes."
Of particular interest is the subsection "NCVS measurement of rape or
sexual assault", starting on page 19. I cannot see any meaningful
attempt at scientific rigour here. Can you explain to me why such
figures should be taken seriously? Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence! There is no evidence in any meaningful sense here.
Which implies that publicising a rape allegation makes it difficult to prosecute it successfully. The article suggests instead that feminist activists specifically select false allegations for publicity, which seems to assume that feminist activists possess some kind of ability to identify false allegations before they are prosecuted, or, indeed, to predict the outcome of a rape case with high accuracy. This is a very strong assumption and is the first thing that should be tested for consistency.
A simpler explanation is that rape allegations are more likely to lead to a failed prosecution, than they are likely to be false. If that was the case, we should expect to also observe a higher rate of failed prosecutions in general (i.e. regardless of publicity) than the rate of false rape allegations.
Though I can't find much relevant data for the United States (there is more for the UK) some sources suggest that such an effect can indeed be observed:
According to FBI statistics, out of 127,258 rapes reported to police departments in 2018, 33.4 percent resulted in an arrest.[13] Based on correlating multiple data sources, RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) estimates[30] that for every 1,000 rapes, 384 are reported to police, 57 result in an arrest, 11 are referred for prosecution, 7 result in a felony conviction, and 6 result in incarceration. This compares to a higher rate at every stage for similar crimes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_the_United_States#Pros...
In other words, while 2-8% of rape allegations are false (according to the article), about 0.7% of rape allegations are successfully prosecuted. Such low rate of successful prosecutions would easily account for a high rate of publicised cases failing without the need of a specialised rape prosecution outcome prediction organ in feminist activists.