Toby Turner, better known as Tobuscus, has been a mainstay of YouTube for over ten years. Between his three channels, he commands an audience of more than 15 million people. During his career as a vlogger, entertainer and musician, he’s performed at VidCon, premiered a film at Sundance, successfully crowdfunded a game and has his own action figure. And today, he joins the ranks of Sam Pepper, Mike Lobardo, Tom Milsom, Alex Day and other vloggers on the platform accused of sexual impropriety.
In a lengthy Tumblr post on April 8, April Fletcher — who goes by Aprileff on her channel — accused Turner of drugging and raping her. “He thought it was a game to keep going when I would say No,” she wrote. They knew each other for five years before she cut off contact and claims things got worse in 2013 when Toby began using drugs. After a fight that same year she recalls, “He sets me down on the end of the bed and starts having sex with me. The entire time I’m crying and mumbling for him to stop but he keeps saying shhh. After he’s finished, he pulls my pants back on and I turn to my side and keep crying.” Later that year, she claims he gave her a shot of vodka laced with MDMA without telling her. Fletcher writes that she “was being cheated on since day one” and that Turner convinced her to remain in his life despite her attempts to leave the relationship.
She also tweeted what she says are screenshots of texts exchanged with Turner:
We’ve reached out to Turner and Fletcher for comment. Turner’s agent at UTA had no comment.
Turner, known for his “literal trailer” comedy videos and gaming vlogs, flatly denied Fletcher’s accusations in a short video posted on April 11. “I have never done anything without her consent,” Turner says tearfully into the camera, “these allegations are absolutely false.” Turner’s mother also defended him in a Facebook post in which she denies both the rape claims and drug use. She calls Fletcher a “drama queen”.
On April 12, another Youtuber, Kathleen Elliot (Katers17) posted her own story to Facebook in which she also describes being drugged by Turner. After reading Fletcher’s Tumblr post, Elliot says she realised, “The denial was broken. I wasn’t the first victim… I was one in a long list.”
Vlogger JaclynGlenn, who was Turner’s most recent girlfriend, said in a YouTube post that he was forceful during their relationship but, “Just because I felt pressured to do things that made me kind of uncomfortable does not mean that I was forced to do them.”
Philip DeFranco, who worked with Turner on two channels (Like Totally Awesome and CuteWinFail) spoke on YouTube about a Super Bowl party where “we had to make him leave because he did something indecent in front of one of my female employees.”
Fletcher says she chose to post to Tumblr after seeing a Tobuscus toy in a Toys R Us. “I wanted to run up to the cashier and tell her that they are selling a drug addict rapist to children. They are selling a sexual predator and don’t even know it.” There’s no evidence Toys R Us sells this particular figurine based on the company’s website and we’ve reached out to the chain for comment. It is, however, available through Amazon. It was also previously available from Walmart, however the Tobuscus figurine appears to have now been pulled the from the online store.
Comments
103 responses to “Another Prominent YouTuber Has Been Accused Of Rape”
Heard about this on a video posted on Phillip De Franco show on Youtube, he seemed to agree whole heartily that Tobuscus is a garbage human being behind closed doors, as far as the rape allegations though he should receive the benefit of the doubt, however seems his accusers mostly just wanted to tarnish his name which I suppose they successfully did.
Are you serious? benefit of the doubt? “Just tarnish his name?” I’m disgusted.
How can’t you trust multiple accounts of his bad behaviour against his tearful denial? But they might be trying to tarnish his status..? So we should trust him because people might want to tarnish his name… because people with power don’t often abuse that power.
I’m mortified. A girl has allegedly been raped and we should give the guy the “benefit of the doubt” – I don’t think there could be anything more upsetting.
Benefit of the doubt – wow. You’re saying that about someone who has allegedly drugged and raped a girl. I can’t even fathom that. Would you dare utter that in front of the victim? I hope not.
Jesus. Are you serious?
Do you understand how the legal system works?
Innocent until proven guilty isn’t just something people say because it’s catchy.
The internet and it’s boundless court of public opinion are truly awful sometimes.
Considering the fact that he said “allegedly drugged and raped a girl” I think he knows that, maybe he thought my statement was skewing more towards his innocence.
Misconceptions can be a bitch, I merely mentioned ‘just tarnish his name’ not as a victim blaming but merely saying the current events seen to only be a social media trial which only results in one thing.. reputation.
“benefit of the doubt” is a very friendly colloquialism. I understood that friendliness as partnering with him. You’re right 🙂
I’m particularly particular.
Also saying ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ is also way too litigant?, systemic? considering that’s not whats happening what would be the right way to paraphrase it?
I wouldn’t speculate on his innocence.
I believe it is more important to engage with people’s humanity more than a system of power. A girl has potentially been raped. She has had something taken from her. The gravity of that is important to me. The gravity of a loss of reputation is of no importance to me. We should weed out those of us within society that misuse their status. Look at our government as a fine example of needs to do the weeding.
Anyways, I’m not saying he is guilty either. I am saying we shouldn’t give him the “benefit of the doubt” – which I understand as a saying that means we should believe their story with equal validity.
My point is to follow up the accusers story until proven true or untrue. I’m not tying any level of “belief” to his story. I just don’t think anyone should throw “give him the benefit of the doubt” around like it’s a friendly football game – someone has potentially been raped so let’s use some objectivity with a little compassion towards the victim since they need it more than the alleged rapist.
So fuck the consequences of false allegations?
No. Prove the allegations first, then we can cast aside concerns about a person’s reputation with aplomb (and valid reason).
Not at all. But we don’t need to defend him to prove the allegations falsely do we? We just need to find out the truth.
In the mean time, you have a victim whose loses much more (you know, the person who was raped and physically taken advantage of) in terms of quality of their existence in comparison to a person who loses a few million viewers and has people say bad shit about him on the internet for the things he did.
And if those allegations are proven untrue there will be plenty of keyboard warriors to type in capslock about how we are wrong – and since that would be a fact people will accept it and life will move on. If he actually offers anything useful to our lives then he will survive.
You can rebuild a reputation, how do you rebuild a rape victim? This is why it’s important to give partial weight, and importantly compassion, to the victim in this case – while also maintaining some sense of objectivity. If they did falsely accuse them then the full weight of the powerful and just legal system will befall them.
What is worse please tell me.
Fraud or rape.
One word answer, go.
EDIT: I’m sorry, I’m having a hard time grasping here why people are so hellbent on defending this person’s reputation first when someone has announced they’ve been raped?
Shouldn’t we discover whether or not this person was indeed raped first and that will ultimately answer whether or not the Turner did or did not in fact rape the victim? It seems to me that rape is a more criminal act than fraud on any level. That’s purely from a humane perspective and not considering like the fraud of a business. I’d still answer rape as more criminal than the act of fraud upon investors, etc.
If rape is a more criminal act, assuming we value everyone’s humanity and well-being more than their economic well-being, then shouldn’t we be focusing on that instead of whether or not the allegation itself is a fraud?
Let’s assume that we do what you say and we side with the girl who was probably raped because rape is worse than fraud. (Kind of a modern, SJW version of Pascal’s Wager). Our protective attitude is telling the world “without any confirmed evidence, I believe this man is a rapist.”
Now, for the sake of the argument, and I know it’s very unlikely but stay with me, let’s say that after the proper police and judicial course it is found out that the guy is unmistakably innocent… what would you say to this man, for whom you and others like you have made life hell for months or however much it takes, potentially damaging his life permanently, as being accused of rape will cast a shadow on him regardless of conviction? “Oops, tee-hee. You have to understand that your right to a good name and fair treatment is irrelevant next to need to protect this fragile flower from further harm. Not my fault that she turned to be a malicious fraud instead of a fragile flower!”?
No one here is arguing that if the guy is indeed the scum that accusations hint at he should be hit with the full weight of the law. Hell, I think most people will agree with you that he very likely is guilty of it all. It still is no excuse to skip due process and potentially damage an innocent person’s life. I hope it doesn’t ever take you to be falsely accused of anything to understand how important this right is.
“You can rebuild a reputation” Why do you think people are allowed to sue defamatory damages? obviously they are able to prove a irreversible stigma.
Theoretical losses. As if that is something tangible like having to experience being a rape victim and how that would change your scope of reality.
Yes, yes we do defend him unless and until he is proven guilty. This is an inalienable right in our legal systems. It MUST be preserved and is indeed more important than the feelings of one particular, potential rape victim until that position is displaced by a guilty verdict.
Rebuild a reputation? No, it’s not that simple. Mud sticks. Even when not guilty at trial, there will always be pockets who continue to believe the person is guilty, others who are ignorant to the verdict. The damage is done. On the other hand, you can always punish the guilty after the verdict and trash their reputation THEN.
Benefit of the doubt is a particularly important pillar of our legal system. Innocent until proven guilty. That whole thing. Surely you’d expect the same treatment if any accusation for any crime was ever levelled at you?
Why didn’t she go to the police?
Clearly you’ve never been raped by someone you’ve been in a relationship with. Neither have I. But I’ve heard enough stories from rape victims about why they didn’t think they could tell anyone.
Philip DeFrancos videos break it down and also show how there are a lot of conflicting stories and lying going with some of the people speaking out against, Turner even defending him against some of the videos that have surfaced. That surely shows that whilst they’re against him in what he did to them personally they know that some others have come out and are lying to gain god knows what.
So hilarious that the same people who were screaming about dragging Alison Rapp’s name through the mud think it’s perfectly fine to slag off Tobuscus in the court of public opinion. Double standards are great, aren’t they? Rapp = child porn apologist (‘no you can’t bring that up, it’s harassment, got nothing to do with her job’) Tobuscus = alleged rapist (‘yeah, what a pig, he is garbage, pull his toy from the stores’).
Colour me utterly unsurprised that you’re trying to leverage alleged multiple rapes into a way to promote GamerGate. HILARIOUS indeed.
And you know how I know you didn’t read the actual essay that forms the basis for Rapp’s alleged child porn apologism?
It’s because her essay is basically the same thing as I’ve seen you repeat over and over here in the comments about censorship/personal freedoms etc etc.
The irony of the collective Gamergate neckbeard going after someone defending their right to watch dodgy animes simply because she also ‘did feminism in games’ should be lost on no-one but I get the feeling it is, and in a big way.
y u so crazy gamergates?
Dude, I read it. I’ll happily get into it with you if you like, but it’s not really the point.
And promote GamerGate? I don’t think so…
Merely pointing out double standards 🙂
Hey guys, (asco and @burnside included) just a reminder to keep your discussion civil and on topic so I don’t have to moderate any comments 🙂
Noticing double standards and injustice = gamergate?
I don’t think so.
It’s not even the same people commenting, that’s a false equivalence. It’s lumping together disparate groups of (and I quote) “militant feminists/SJWs” and calling it one big bad group of meanie misandrists. In much the same way a lot of disparate groups are lumped together as “Gamergate”.
Yes, I agree. It’s a little tongue in cheek to refer to ‘teh feminists’ in the same way as people refer to anyone and everyone as ‘GamerGate’ 🙂
Getting really tired of people using that little falsity: “the same people”. Oh, so you know it’s the EXACT same people defending Alison Rapp who are trashing Tobuscus? HOW do you know that? Do you keep a list of names?
What we have here is some people who chose to defend Rapp and some people who chose to attack Tobuscus, and apparently that equals a “double standard”. Incidentally, there were obviously people who chose to attack Rapp first and there are people who are defending Tobuscus, but apparently there’s nothing hypocritical about that.
Surely if you’ve been a victim of this kind of thing then it’s the police that you should be reporting it to, as opposed to the entire world via Twitter? If there’s sufficient evidence then he should be tried, convicted and jailed. On the other hand, if there isn’t enough proof then wouldn’t you be opening yourself up to be sued for defamation by making the accusations publicly like this?
When I made this point on Gizmodo, I had two people try to shout me down saying that this was basically victim blaming, and they may not want to go through the trauma of speaking to the police or it going to legal trial. The police will call into question whether their accusation is factual and conduct an actual investigation – that feeling of people doubting you is enough to turn them away from going to the police.
So instead we’ll have a trial by social media! Because absolutely none of that happens with social media, right? Right?!
Gawker readers are normally quite irrational. Then again we are reading gawker…
Every time I have been placed in moderation it is because of some regressive double standard that could only be attributed to a company that hits out against people hosting pictures of Jennifer Laurence, but has no issue about going to court over Hogan’s sex tape.
When it is implied that an accusation is false because a purported victim hasn’t gone to the authorities, there is an inherent element of victim blaming, regardless of whether you want to recognise it or not.
Equating the motivations, processes, and outcomes of presenting information to social media vs the authorities is a terrible conflation to make.
The argument was that victims may not report to authorities because of the trauma of reliving the event and undergoing the basic legal principle (natural social justice) of a presumption of innocence until proven otherwise. That argument is pretty ridiculous if a purported victim is happy to make that accusation on social media, which is 100x worse. Is it any wonder people are more sceptical?
Nobody here knows who is telling the truth. It isn’t even our place to decide that. If it’s victim blaming to question why we’ve had a couple of these that were entirely on social media with no legal action, then fuck it – I guess we’re victim blaming, along with the basic legal tenant of innocence until proven guilty.
I would assume she’s doing both. Although if she isn’t this is still understandable since her motivation for making this public is the realisation that he’s being marketed to children. She may not feel legal action is entirely appropriate. From what I can tell they were in a relationship so it wouldn’t be totally absurd if she considered what happened to be a huge misunderstanding of boundaries (as stupid as that sounds). She could feel that way yet still think that his audience needs to be made aware of his tastes since they are potentially very dangerous.
Hell, she may even feel that a court case would hurt her ability to raise awareness of his actions. By going down a strictly court based path she’d probably be letting it be slipped under the rug but this way he has to respond publicly. Then again she may just be the sort of person whose response to this sort of thing is a personal attack. Internet celebrities do tend to go straight for the personal feud regardless of the severity of the topic.
This may not be a great response and I know you’re simply asking why she chose this reaction over more logical ones, but it’s important to note that a poor response is not a good reason to doubt her claims or dismiss her entirely.
I’m not making any judgement either way about the validity of her claims, I’m just making the point that there’s no way their validity can actually be established until they’re actually tested in court. Whether that’s by him being charged and tried for rape in a criminal court, or her getting sued for defamation in a civil court.
At least in the case of the latter then she’d only have to prove that it “probably” happened the way she claimed, whereas a criminal trial would require it to be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, which is much more difficult.
Also, I should make it clear that I’m not a lawyer, so may well be talking out of my arse about all this 😛
I totally get that. It’s clear you’re simply approaching this with a level head and asking questions. It’s just a dangerous line of questions because there are a lot of ways it gets turned around onto the victim. It can push people towards thinking things likes ‘she’s obviously lying because she won’t go to court’ or ‘she’s not going to court, so we’ll never know for sure, so shut up about it all and forget anyone said anything’. Obviously that’s not your objective here but it’s easy to accidentally lead people to those conclusions.
It’s also worth considering that she may have zero confidence in the courts ability to do what you say it will do. A lot of rape victims feel like going to court is pointless because people insist rape is a ‘he says she says’ argument where the court will turn against them simply because they can’t produce a signed statement of intent to rape and a video of the crime. She has evidence she’s confident proves her accusations, but people often feel like they won’t be given a chance to explain their evidence to a human when they take it to court*.
It would be easy for her to think her evidence has passed it’s expiration date, and thus she’s better off doing this and hoping new victims come out (similar to what happened with Bill Cosby).
*Off topic, but I feel like that stems from the way court proceedings and police arrests are portrayed in TV shows. They do that dramatic thing of ‘this evidence was entered slightly wrong, so the psycho-murder gets to walk free!’ and it makes us believe the legal system is that stupid. Like if a lawyer uses the wrong chicken bones for their voodoo chants the defendant is untouchable. We feel like no matter how strong the evidence is there’s always a way for it to be turned around because that’s what happens on TV every time.
That also cuts both ways, though. The alternate way to look at the situation is “if he doesn’t sue her for defamation it’s because she’s telling the truth”. When maybe he doesn’t want to go through the courts himself, maybe he can’t afford a lawyer, maybe he doesn’t want all the details of his personal life dragged out into the public domain, etc.
In principle I disagree with making these accusations outside the legal system where they can’t be tested and essentially forcing the accused to be tried by popular opinion. However domestic rape is a complex thing where both victim and accused probably have mixed feelings. So your points actually are really good. I admit, despite being a woman and a feminist who watches too much SVU and hates rape, I raised a questioning eyebrow when I read about her method of disclosure. But after reading your comment, I’m starting to see how she could have decided to turn to Tumblr.
Maybe I’m being left behind but I just find it surreal that all of this is happening on social media. Accusation -> accused’s plea of innocence -> character defences -> potential previous victims. I’m finding it difficult to take any of them seriously without thinking that all/most/some of them are at least partially jumping on for the views. I mean its weird that this Toby guy posted a plea of innocence as a Youtube video right…which he gets paid for… which seems to have some 2 million views…
And don’t get me started on all these narcissist view-baiters posting 10 min opinion vlogs despite having nothing to do with it and therefore not really be in any position to say anything remotely insightful. Who is watching these videos? Why should I care why Youtuber#12 thinks Toby is guilty/not guilty?
I totally agree that the legal system is where this needs to be. If anyone reading this has been the victim of rape go straight to the police. I’m just suggesting reasons why her decision to react this way doesn’t automatically invalidate the accusation or prove some sinister motive. That’s not where Braaains was going but it’s where his questions tend to lead if left unanswered (and admittedly the reason I had an answer to those questions is because they’re the first questions I asked).
As for the video, I don’t think he’s making any money off that one. I’m pretty sure YouTube doesn’t have any systems that pays simply for getting views and there aren’t any ads on it. That said every word of this has been a career decision for both sides which is super unsettling. These people turn themselves into brands so on one level it’s her and him, but it’s hard to ignore the other level where it’s Coke vs Pepsi.
It seems to me like a bit of a stupid move, even if she also went the police way. Even if the guy is guilty, his attorney is going to use this little campaign as a way to paint his client as the victim and make the process longer and more harrowing for her. Hell, it may be even presented as some sort of pre-emptive punishment, resulting in a lower sentence for the guy. Not good.
Whether it’s the right way to say this stuff or not (and this really shouldn’t end up a witch hunt for either the accuser or the accused) it seems pretty clear to me that the guy admitted to slipping something into her drink, whatever the reason, whatever the context and whatever happened afterwards the guy sounds like an utter piece of shit.
By all accounts he is, but there are a fair few people that deal with him on a first hand basis that are calling BS on the rape part.
Rapists are not monsters under the bed, they are people you know. They earn your respect, and then they abuse it.
So by that logic the victim is the only one that can get away without physical evidence? The whole situation has been handled in a poor manner.
What logic? That rapists are people like you and I? So much like everyday people that those around us wouldn’t know the exact evil/weird shit we could get up to? Why is that people are often shocked when they find out someone is a rapist and committed those crimes? Because they don’t expect it. Neither would his friends.
Think of it this way – if you were going around drugging your victims and having your way with them would you let your friends know or would you hide it from them?
There are people that were there on the multiple nights that they have said he drugged people saying that he didn’t seem to ever do anything worse than being handsy.
Your point appeared to be that he must be a rapist and is just hiding it. Which is why I replied the way I did. If your point isn’t as such then thats fine I have no argument to make, but if you are saying that he is probably a rapist and just hides it, then I think within that context your argument is flawed.
Nobody should be guilty until proven otherwise and circumstantial evidence isn’t enough proof to show him as anything other than a handsy drug addict.
Yes, you’ve missed my point because I’m saying most, if not all, rapists would attempt to conceal the fact they rape others.
The way you put your statement initially was that people who interact with him 1-to-1, on a first hand basis, are calling him being a rapist as bullshit. My counter point was to state that it’s unlikely they’d know unless he had raped them. And judging by how he goes about it they might not even know if he had.
So what are these “fair few people” suggesting? That he spiked her drink then went and played Hearthstone until she woke up?
This is one of those situations where the public should withhold judgement on either party since all we have is heresay from both parties. We should encourage more women to come forth if there are more women and let the authorities conduct a proper investigation.
Trial by internet never ends well…
Amen to that!
Women, and men, should not be made to feel ashamed about going public with the fact they’ve been raped. Nobody should stand on the milk carton and question their bravery to come out with the fact they’d been raped. Save your doubts on that kind of matter until after. It’s more damaging to pre-emptively question the victim’s reality – in doing so you stand with the rapist. The truth about this situation is there is no real objectivity. Objectivity is not real. Personal politics will ALWAYS colour your viewpoint – this matter is no exception.
I disagree. It is always open to question someone’s bona fides. The whole idea of it being the prosecution’s duty to prove guilt is rendered null and void when a mob is whipped up in the court of public opinion, wherein the threshold of proof is vastly inferior to that of a court of law.
It is disingenuous to say that questioning the complainant’s version of the events is tantamount to standing with the (alleged!) rapist. People confuse sympathy with credulity all the time. It’s OK to be supportive of someone who alleges rape, but you should not reverse the onus of proof. That’s led to a paradigm where a mere accusation leads to condemnation in the eyes of the public, regardless of whether or not a criminal complaint is made to law enforcement agencies.
To question validity in this context is to discredit by nature. When we do this we exert power-over another. To willingly discredit an individual who has come forth and announced they were raped by someone of status before they have even made it to court is a sad state of affairs for our society – and one that is normalized and handed down to others as “objectivity.”
Perhaps my idea of being objective and compassionate towards victims (until they are proven to be fraudsters through the investigation they make through their own accusation against someone – in which case they will be sued and the victim then gains back the initial losses to their reputation) is just not in line with the rest of you. /shrug
You can provide support without confirming or discrediting the validity of someone’s allegations. The most important thing is to support the people in question (on both sides of the allegation) and often this means encouraging them to speak, allowing them to speak and ensuring they know that the people close to them are there to support them.
At no point do you actually need to pass judgement on the content of the allegations.
@0kensai0 put it best above. Encourage and support doesn’t mean joining in the condemnation.
Openly questioning the validity of their accusation in a public forum is not being objective, that is actually joining the condemning. It calls in to question the reliability of the accuser.
It’s like an inverse-witch hunt.
And yet posting the accusation in such a public way triggers exactly that same witch hunt. Which is why this is a matter best left to the legal process.
People shouldn’t be discouraged from questioning anything when there is a lack of clear evidence. Otherwise the flimsiest of accusations would be grounds for punishment – something the Internet hate machine has been remarkably good at. Something people generally hate b
There is a middle path where you can be not making victims feel ashamed about disclosing but also not preemptively judging the ‘alleged rapist. Your rhetoric stands way too much on the side of the victim. Objectivity may not be real, but we cannot punish the accused based purely on what the accuser’s reality is. Perhaps the truth is somewhere between the two accounts.
I find it hard to understand how you can be so blatantly biased towards all potential rape victims, seeing only their potential trauma (which is terrible) but completely overlook the trauma that being potentially falsely accused of rape, or any crime, can inflict on a persons life. To quote you a little, victims should be defended “until they are proven to be fraudsters”, yet somehow accused persons don’t deserve the presumption of innocence until they are proven guilty.
I don’t want to be someone who instantly assumes these females are lying and slandering him for personal gain, it seems there are already far to many people who instantly jump to that conclusion and never give a second to consider these allegations may be true.
Having said that, I can’t help but look at the way they chose to speak out about it, rather than confiding in friends or family who guided them towards the police, or going to directly to the police themselves, they chose to take to social media. I’m not a psychologist so I can’t comment on how some people may do that because blah blah, but for me personally, it does scream attention over truth.
He may well be a shit bloke who cheats on his various girlfriends and is just generally an arsehole, maybe every ex girlfriend he has tends to wind up hating him, and maybe rightly so. It’s that mutual hate that could encourage people to support untruths about someone just to see them burned. hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.
My hope from this point is that the Police act swiftly, investigate the allegations and either clear him quickly so he can get back on with his life, or throw him in gaol where he belongs if found guilty.
The problem is, by going so public with accusations, he is guilty in a lot of people’s eyes. In the same instance, by going public with the accusations, she’s guilty of “crying rape” in an equal number of eyes.
No body wins here when people take to social media to get their justice instead of going through the legal system.
yep exactly. that’s why in my opinion the avenue she/they chose to speak out on, seems to have a motivating factor that isn’t legal justice. Even if now proven not guilty, the damage is already done, his popularity will almost certainly take a noticeable hit from this. I’m sure this was not lost on the accuser prior to choosing social media as the outlet to make the accusations. In my experience, the 2 people I have met who have had to go through this, want as few people to know as possible, I’ve never met someone who wanted to advertise to the whole world what happened to them.
But again I want to emphasise, this needs to be quickly dealt with by the law so as to minimise the damage if he is innocent, or bring swift justice to him if he’s guilty.
The law won’t do anything about it if nobody makes a complaint. And the story doesn’t mention anything about whether or not she has actually made a complaint to the police about it or not – all it mentions is her making the allegations on social media. The only way this will get any kind of actual resolution will be if she makes a formal complaint in order to get the police to investigate or if he takes legal action to sue her for making those allegations on social media.
Yes of course legal action needs to be taken by somebody, I would certainly hope that now the alleged victims have found the courage to tell the whole world, they can use that courage and all of the supportive tweets to take the matter to Police, where it should have been taken in the first instance. Because surely if the alleged victims don’t seek legal action, the accused will for defamation.
If she is telling the truth, if it does turn out she was raped, then it should go to court.
If she’s making a false accusation, it should still go to court with charges pressed against *her* for a false accusation.
I have no doubt the guys a sleaze, that many people confirming he’s a douchebag seperately it’s obviously got merit to it. However it’s not up to me or really, anyone on social media to decide it (as you’re saying as well). The problem is false accusations (if there is the remote chance this is one) can lead to issues such as suicide brought on by depression, guilt etc, for both parties, a very real issue.
Again not blaming her, not even blaming him, just saying, the relevant authorities need to handle this, not uninformed, unqualified people on the internet.
Yep, exactly
A voice of reason in a sea of pitchforks
Just a friendly reminder that just because someone goes to the police, doesn’t mean it’ll go to court.
The police may decided there is insufficient evidence to prove a rape occurred. (Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.) The prosecutor may decide there’s no chance of securing a conviction. (Doesn’t meant it didn’t happen.) Or there may be a settlement of some sort prior to a trial. (STILL doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.)
Saying it should go to court highlights that you don’t recognize that over 80% of rape cases don’t go to court, for the above three reasons and many many more…
I realize that the right to be presumed innocent is important, but don’t we also have to presume the victim innocent? (Because under your scenario, she’s lying, and therefore slandering, making false accusation, etc, etc… which are serious crimes which, uh, we should be giving her the benefit of the doubt for?)
An even friendlier reminder: Don’t put words in my mouth that I haven’t said please.
I never declared her guilty of everything. If you’re going to assume her innocent, you have to assume he is innocent too. This is the entire point of the court system. Innocent until proven guilty. The onus is upon her to prove his guilt and the onus is upon him also to prove he didn’t do it. It’s a two way street, if you want to claim, you have to provide proof, she says she has proof, she should be providing it to the police. Just to add to your 80% statistic, it’s very hard for a lot of women to go to police over rape, that’s incredibly true and noone would dare challenge that. Noones going to say ‘skip to the police station my darling’. The unfortunate side effect of this, is as any law enforcement officer can tell you, as the days, months and potentially years go by, the chance of charges being succesful dry up as time distances itself from the crime. It’s a horrendous situation, it’s a bitch of a catch 22, but it is undeniably true. I wish we were in a world where it was simple to just go and do it, but we aren’t.
Yet she seems to be ok enough with sharing it with the world and grabbing attention, one wonders why she isn’t ok enough with going to the police where justice could be served potentially even if it is a lower percentage chance?
And the problem here is that taking it to social media prior to taking it to the police pretty much guarantees there is zero chance of it going to court. The police have to investigate, find out if there’s evidence to support etc. I never supplied a ‘scenario’, stop putting words in my mouth. I simply said it’s potentially possible she might be making it up, it’s potentially possible she’s telling the truth, noone knows this and noone will know it until it’s investigated or been given *the chance* to be investigated. But how can it be given the chance if it’s not taken to the relevant authorities?
So, no I don’t ‘give her the benefit of the doubt’, I believe she has the right to be declared innocent of any crime of course, as he does and all her claims investigated as he does. Because *that* is how the legal system should work and idealistically does. When you presume, you’re “supposing that something is the case on the basis of probability”, but as with the law, you simply cannot do that, you have to rely on facts, because probability leads to margin of error, which inevitably works against you in the end and bites you on the ass.
“Sure, we didn’t convict him because you know, he probably didn’t do it your honour… probably…”
“Sure we threw him in jail, her story sounded ok, he probably did it your honour… probably.”
Sounds awesome eh.
And once again we come to the classic conundrum. A very, very serious allegation that essentially boils down to a “he said, she said”. These allegations need to be taken seriously. On the other hand you can’t really string somebody up for something so serious as this based solely on some screenshots and a tumblr post. The videos by Toby’s compatriots certainly lend meat to the allegations though.
All one can do is sit back and wait for the drama to unfold. Frankly, this is lose, lose, lose all round.
No, because militant feminists always win. They either beat you down with their arguments or shut you up because you are ‘slut shaming’, ‘victim blaming’, ‘triggering’, ‘Gamergater’, etc. True debate rarely occurs these days.
Well, all that should be done in this case I guess, logically, is for charges to be pressed, for it to go to court and for them to seek to bring whatever the truth is out into the light. The Court of Law should be handling this, not the public court of opinion which 9 out of 10 times gets shit wrong 10 out of 10 times.
ITT:
>> “Why don’t women speak out when they’re raped?”
>> “Why are they speaking out, they’re just drama queens!”
Disclaimer: I don’t necessarily agree with the method of using the public court of opinion, however there may be a valid reason – e.g. she tried to report it to the police but was talked out of it. Who knows?
The texts do at least suggest he slipped something in her drink without her permission – not that it automatically makes Turner a rapist. But there’s also two other (independent) people who have spoken out.
I also maintain that at this stage everything is still alleged, so innocent until proven guilty still applies. Lynch mobs aren’t okay. But neither is victim blaming – never, ever.
EDIT: Haha wow, yes that should have read “innocent until proven guilty”. Mega derp.
Indeed, but taking it to social media rather than taking it to the police actually harms her situation. When she does eventually seek legal recourse, the first thing that will happen is quite frankly, nothing. He won’t be able to be prosecuted fairly due to bias or as she will have lost credibility in the eyes of the law.
Nobody suggested she shouldn’t speak out – rather what was suggested was that social media isn’t the correct forum for making accusations of a criminal offence. Clearly she isn’t so traumatised that she doesn’t want to make a complaint (given she posted it on Twitter) so there’s no reason not to go to the police.
Pretty huge difference between talking to the police and/or close friends versus uploading pics on social media. Guy might be a total jerk but she could be even worse for all we know (there is a lot of crazy out there).
There isn’t much justice for women who are victims of rape. I’m glad she went public with it.
Yeah except in the court of social media you are guilty until proven otherwise, which is a load of shit.
“Mr Toby Turner, you are charged with being a witch. The punnishment for such crimes is death. You will be bound, gagged and thrown in the river. If you truly are innocent as you say you are you will sink to the bottom and drown…”
Good ol’ social media, bringing back the justice system of the dark ages.
He could just be a very small rock.
As someone who experienced sexual abuse in their childhood- I can tell you as a matter of fact- the hard part is getting other victims to go on the record and see it through until the end.
I could have named and shamed, but I chose to work with law enforcement, because I trust that law enforcement professionals will be ethical, thorough and uncover the facts.
What happened to me may be the worst the offender did, or it may be the tip of the iceberg.
If I name and shame what they did- it could be the only thing heard and likely 3rd parties are open to interpret my motivations out of context.
I have empathy for Toby, because he’s on trial without rights. He doesn’t get due process, he doesn’t get the right of assumed innocence. In the eyes of many he is automatically guilty and his livelihood and reputation is forever tarnished. If he’s a scoundrel that would have happened anyway- but if he’s innocent then this is a grave and unforgivable injustice against him.
The worst part is that it ultimately can hurt legitimate claims of rape as the knee jerk reaction from some groups will be “look another liar”
You mean like quite a few people here? No kidding. That’s kind of the whole problem. So if you’re wondering why this keeps happening, have a look through the comments here and then imagine yourself (I know, this is probably impossible) as a person who had their entire personal freedom brutally stripped away as someone used you as a receptacle.
‘No, I’ll just keep quiet until the police sort this out because we all know rape offences have such a high conviction rate.’
Low conviction rate? Yeah, because circumstantial evidence and here say long after the fact is not seen as enough evidence to destroy a possibly innocent persons life. Maybe you should stop drinking that cool aid or are you gonna spout some nonsense about one in five female university students being raped?
I would normally reply and at least bother to hold a debate, but leftists are more interested in drama and a blood show than anything else. So I am gonna just go ahead and ignore you from here on.
And conservatives have a sociopathic disregard for the suffering of others and always lead the charge to defend and endorse rape.
I’ll take the drama thanks.
Why make it a left right thing. Rape isn’t some Liberal fiction. Rape happens.
The problem is that the law, and to a larger extent, society, hasn’t caught up. Rape is the kind of crime where solid forensic evidence is rare, where entire cases can be based on his/her testimony and circumstantial facts. But the courts are not equipped to properly deal with this and therefore low conviction rates and a nightmare for victims to live through. Reform is needed, wider education is needed to prevent it in the future.
The system as is disillusions accusers, causing them to turn to even more flawed methods like this ugly trial by social media. The law favours accused, the media favours the victims.
I completely and utterly understand the horrible, incredible pressure that’s on people to confront those who have done them wrong. I’ve supported people in my life who had to make that choice, who also made the choice to keep quiet. It’s soul shattering to see them make the second choice but you have to support their choice as well. It’s a million times harder for them no matter how hard it was for me.
I don’t in any way support people who choose to take it to social media though. When you can opt to take it to, as Vaegrand put it, the modern day Salem witch trials, you can damn well do the right thing and take it to the police. If you’re willing to make it go world wide, make yourself the center of attention where no *true* justice can be served, you’re doing a grave disservice to those who go through the process of dealing with this issue legitimately, confronting their demons and the literal demon who took something from them. Those who opt to go through the process of confrontation over social media take something from those who deal with it properly, yet they don’t realise the actual harm they do while postulating themselves as a martyr.
Got nothing but respect for women and men who go public about rape or abuse. I can’t imagine how intimidating it would be to tell the world that a man loved by millions could be so dreadful.
Victim shamers and sympathisers really need to check themselves. I know it’s hard to find something to feel oppressed by when you’re a white, middle class male, but try and find something less horrible to be offended by.
So people are even announcing they’ve been raped on twitter nowadays? Good lord. Any normal person would report it to the cops who does a post online with screens for proof?
Seriously, I have no idea who’s the bullshit artist here but posting it online doesn’t lend much credibility to this sort of accusation.
If its true, he should obviously be on trial and jailed. Goes without saying. But if not and it turns out a couple of tarts are doing it for attention, HE should sue for slander.
I for one eagerly await the apologies from the INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY IF YOU’RE A MAN crew if and when these allegations prove true. Because I’m sure you’ll all put a lot more effort into your apologies for throwing shade on someone who was raped than you do in defending someone who at best appears to be an awful human being.
Right?
I’d also suggest that since none of you know whether or not his victims did report this to police, you hold off banging on about it until you do know.
And while you wait, spend some time reading the many articles and studies about why it is women often don’t report rapes or go through with trials.
Hint – the attitudes displayed by many people here are why.
I’ve literally been up and down these forums looking for people saying this and there’s noone I’ve seen. I’m not saying it, noone else is, I don’t even believe that ‘if a man’ jibe. I believe anyone is innocent until proven guilty. It goes both ways but also due to personal experience that all allegations should be fully investigated to determine validity. Can you actually point out who exactly you think is saying the ‘if you’re a man’ part? I’m more than happy to be proven wrong on this.
To all the people saying OMG SHE SAID IT ON SOCIAL MEDIA RAPED OR NOT THATS JUST TOO FAR OMG OMG
Have you led such sheltered lives that you think a rape victim will forbear using any tools possible to try and reclaim even a shred of the power taken from her?
I know that to a lot of people posting here rape is just something you use as a joke, or shake your head solemnly at to appear like you care when it’s simply an argumentative tool for you.
But the reality is that it is worse than anything you can probably imagine – and this lack of understanding is something a lot of people here are self-identifying with through blase commentary.
Rape isn’t just ‘inconvenient sex’. In fact the ‘sex’ part of it is the surface issue.
The real evil of rape is that it utterly destroys you as a person.
Thing is, most of the people posting here about these terrible women are in pretty much complete control of their lives, whether they realise it or not. They have freedom and agency. Their sense of who they are, such as it is, is something they have sole ownership of.
Rape takes that from people. It means you, the person you were up until you were raped, no longer exists. From that point on, someone owned you. You became their thing. Not the person you are, but an object for them to use.
That destroys who you are as a person. It takes away the essential power of self identity and agency.
And it can take decades to reclaim that, if it ever happens.
I’ve never been raped. I’m a white middle class dude so I’m pretty much as safe as it gets.
But I know people who have, and seen the damage it causes.
As a result, I’m utterly unsurprised that as a first port of call a rape victim would use social media to out their attacker. It’s because we finally live in an age where that’s possible – as opposed to only a few decades ago, where it was nigh impossible for a woman to gain recognition, much less restitution. Even now, as we can see here, the first thing a sizeable part of the population does is leap to the defence of the man – even with pretty clear circumstantial evidence.
I’ll note many of the people here posting INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY certainly didn’t see things that way on plenty of previous hot-button issues to do with alleged ethics in game journalism. But that’s not a surprise to anyone, is it?
Maybe these women are just crazy, and made up false allegations for some reason that no one can work out. And if so, then he can sue them for all they have, and you can all head to his place for a big kegger party to celebrate his victory over these awful lying women.
But before that happens I’d seriously suggest many of you try and expand your understanding of reality to grasp the severity of these things before making such blithe commentary.
So you don’t actually see the damage it actually does to her situation by posting openly on social media… getting away from the limited idea that you think it’s actually defending his potential actions, you can’t fathom the concept that by openly declaring he’s a rapist, by posting evidence publicly etc, that this won’t be able to be potentially used in court, that he won’t be able to get a fair trial, that it pollutes the waters and actually *can* create bias that *if he is guilty* can lead to him actually being acquitted of such charges due to the rash decision to post on social media?
Continue to try to condemn people all you want but get off your soapbox a moment and think further than your initial rage to the potential harm this kind of thing is doing. It’s not just her, it’s not even rape victims *at all*, it’s this mentality of this current age, where people insist on posting everything they can on facebook or twitter seeking ‘justice’, when they actually get anything but. It makes you get a modicum of instant gratification, the likes and the follower numbers rack up fast, the ‘messages’ of support rush in sure, but when you step away from that computer or your phone and have to deal with *real life*, those people are not there. When the legal ramifications come flooding in such as slander (calling someone a rapist for instance without concrete charges having been pressed and proven, this is indeed slander), there is definitely potential for this to backfire.
Most of us know someone who’s been raped, but you’re right as a single white male myself I *don’t* know how hard it is and neither do you. It’s a terrible situation and I don’t for one moment pretend to know how life destroying it is.
But I do know outright that immediately assuming that one has to agree with someone ‘taking power back’ by using social media is a false assumption. Just because someone tries a method, does not make it correct or good if it can result in potentially harming their cause. There *are better methods* that don’t put your chance of justice at risk. What if more young girls are influenced to potentially just take their situations to social media rather than going to authorities? Should the message not be “seek justice via the law not retribution by witch hunt” on social media? The facts may be that convictions may be at a lower percentage, but that lower percentage is never given a *chance* if they’re not utilised.
If Tobuscus *is* guilty of this, then I hope the asshole goes to jail and stays there, if he’s innocent, I hope she’s charged. But in the end, I seriously hope her actions here haven’t jeopardized her chance at justice if it happened the way she says. Because sometimes we make silly mistakes and it would really, really be shitful if a silly mistake like posting stuff all over social media cost her the justice she deserved.
Congratulations on not actually reading what it is you blusteringly rebut in your defence of the, let’s be frank here, pretty awful comments from people.
Let me spell it out for you.
For you, a middle aged white man sitting in his underpants hammering at a keyboard, the world seems like a nice black and white place. All full of abstract internet arguments and logical conclusions.
Yes, this probably doesn’t help her in any legal challenges.
Yes, to a middle aged white man this scary new world of young people and their instagram self obsession is terrible and not like when we were young oh no we were so mature and totally not self absorbed no sirree.
Yes, choosing to try and take power back isn’t necessarily a good thing – though neither is it bad either.
All this utterly misses my point, which you skipped in your rush to defend the usual suspects.
Someone who has been raped isn’t thinking as abstractly as you are. So don’t judge them by your white middle aged man in underpants criteria.
Well done on the strawman defense in your rush to insult. You’re sinking to personal insults which is utterly ridiculous.
As for missing the point, you yourself missed the entire point of taking back control, of course someone can do it, of course it’s a good thing, but not every avenue of doing this is the right way to do it and not every avenue of doing this should be applauded because not every single avenue of doing this will result in a positive outcome for them. There’s *nothing* abstract about saying “I should take a second to think about my actions before I perform them…”. We live in a seemingly reactive world these days, where people do, then they think, as displayed directly here by her actions in going straight to social media. That’s a real shame. Because people will blindly support it, empowering people to make the *wrong* decision by posting on facebook and missing the opportunity to actually get justice rather than encouraging the person to actually seek justice. The people reading will throw up empty claims that it’s ‘taking back power’, when in fact, it’s really just self aggrandizement for those reading the story, a masturbatory pat on the back for those who want to pretend they’ve got a horse in that race when they don’t.
One more thing, there’s really no room in this sort of discourse for slinging personal insults. You should know better than that.
As someone who is also a middle aged white man in underpants, I am offended that you find that descriptor to be offensive,
And that’s a lot of words for you to say ‘I still didn’t get your point but want to have a tantrum because I think you’re saying things that make me feel uncomfortable about defending a bunch of rape apologists but I’m going to double down and victim blame someone because as you pointed out I demonstrably have no clue at how a traumatised rape victim would act since I am basically choking on privilege right now.’
One more thing, the fact that you try and mount your high horse and cry about what wasn’t even an insult after marginalising a rape victim’s choices really has no place in this discourse.
Oh no wait, yes it does.
It is in fact the centrepoint of this discourse.
White middle class dudes telling rape victims how they should behave and censuring them for daring to not react within a proscribed set of behaviours designed to protect rapists.
Alongside a bunch of gamergaters who last week were slagging off a woman with no actual evidence because Nintendo and ethics in games journalism something something and this week are screaming about innocent until proven guilty because white male rule of law something something.
So much manufactured outrage simply so you can feel your status quo isn’t being taken from you.
Don’t worry, I confidently predict in ten years’ time you’ll still be able to victim blame survivors of rape online and have a bunch of other white dudes back you up.
It’s all good man. Your safe, secure world will remain safe and secure for you.
Women who get to spend years of their lives messed up after some guy just drugged them, pulled their pants off, used them like a sex toy, and then SMS’ed them with I LOVE U BABE IT WAS GR8, not so much.
But you know, you post as if don’t really care about the latter as long as you have the former. And that is the bedrock of many, many of your posts I have seen here. You’re not a bad person, so I suggest you take two minutes today to think about why you align yourself so often with people who are, quite frankly, not pleasant.
If he committed a crime she should have just reported him to the police.
like seriously i dont understand, why tell your tumblr followers and not even go to the police, i dont get it.