Working on databases from prison

From your link:

> The defendant, Preston Thorpe, appeals his conviction for possession of a controlled drug with intent to sell

He may have done other things, but his conviction was for possession with intent, and that seems to be why he's locked up. It doesn't make anything else he's done acceptable, but in America he's innocent until proven guilty, and it doesn't seem he was found guilty of assault.

> ...in America he's innocent until proven guilty...

...in a court of law. Innocent until proven guilty doesn't extend to internet comments.

>Innocent until proven guilty doesn't extend to internet comments.

That's not a good thing.

Edit: I cannot really believe that this, of all comments, is controversial. Living life treating everyone as guilty until they prove themselves innocent is... just shitty, let alone exhausting. Do people forget about how many times reddit and other ruined innocent people's lives?

Sometimes HN amazes me with new technology, interesting conversations, etc. Sometimes it amazes me when people are arguing that we should go through life treating people as guilty first, until they are proven innocent. I think I'll go back to not participating for awhile.

Why? Different fora have different standards of proof. For example, in civil cases (even in America) the standard of proof is 'preponderance of evidence', not 'innocent until proven guilty'.

Why should internet comments follow criminal law, and not eg civil law, or some other standard?

The options are you assume people are innocent unless proven guilty, or guilty unless proven innocent.

Going through life treating everyone as guilty until proven innocent sounds like an exhausting and negative way to treat everyone, and harms more people overall.

Those are not the only options, those are the two extremes of a spectrum. Most people fall in the middle with something like "assume people are innocent unless you see convincing evidence of guilt". This is a reasonable philosophy unless you have power over someone, in which case proof is much more important.