Chapter 239: Chapter 239: Public Opinion

“Are you really okay? You are not hiding it from me to endure it all by yourself, are you?” Lucas Hill was still not completely at ease.

“If something was wrong, where would I have gotten the energy to happily come and meet you the other day? I am not that excellent of an actor. Do not worry unnecessarily.” Julian Sterling let out a sigh, comforting his friend.

“Alright then, if you have affirmed it so, we will put that matter aside for now. But how are you planning to resolve this chaotic mess now? Down in the comment section… there are so many filthy and malicious words, reading them makes my blood boil.”

Lucas Hill had already tried his best to use the gentlest and most polite words to describe it. The comment section at the bottom of the post right now had to be described as a chaotic, foul-smelling battlefield of words. Of course, there were also level-headed people who did not immediately believe in a one-sided story, stating that the poster must have clear evidence or images extracted from security cameras to prove it.

In response to those doubts, the poster made the excuse that to avoid violating community standards, he could not post the pictures that he described as “Julian Sterling naked” and such things up here. But somehow, he had managed to dig up the case file information from Julian Sterling’s previous civil lawsuit from somewhere.

The information of the filing party, the reasons for the lawsuit, and clearly written on it were Julian Sterling’s full name as well as Ethan Caldwell’s involvement, all of these were displayed clearly and distinctly in the photographed document. Coincidentally, the sensitive information related to Aaron Sterling happened to accidentally lie right on the back page of the document stack, so it was completely unexposed to the public eye.

Amidst that sea of comments, there were also a few kind-hearted people speaking up in defense. They said that even if that terrible incident were the truth, this account was absolutely not allowed to post it publicly like this for the sake of public shaming. This was a matter of minimum morality, a principle of protecting the privacy and honor of the victim. But the number of these sensible comments was extremely scarce, and they were soon submerged, completely buried under thousands of malicious remarks, curses, and biting reprimands from apathetic anonymous people on the internet.

Indeed, scolding and berating in a completely unreasonable manner.

Clearly, the one who was harmed was the victim, and the one who had to endure the fear was the victim. But once sensitive issues, especially matters related to honor and sexuality, were maliciously publicized to the outside world by someone like that, the truth seemed to no longer matter. Even if they bore the title of a victim, they could in no way escape being judged and treated poorly by the idle crowd using the most malicious and venomous words. Thinking carefully about it, it was truly ridiculous to say out loud.

The law clearly protected the victims, but after the case concluded on paper and the evildoer was slapped with handcuffs, the trauma inflicted upon the victim by the gossiping society’s tongues still persisted. Furthermore, that invisible wound even mutated to become more severe and more persistent than physical wounds.

In such paradoxical situations, instead of condemning the perpetrator, the majority of people, with their inherently curious and victim-blaming nature, would associate and wildly speculate that it was the victim themselves who had some sort of lifestyle problem, or that they dressed revealingly and flirtatiously, which was why they were targeted and treated that way by bad people.

Despicable to the extreme.

Perhaps because Julian Sterling was of the male gender, not a weak and delicate girl, the words they spoke online were mostly more of a character-insulting nature, and not quite as awful or targeting physical body issues as they would with females. But even so, the disgusting things, the filthy conspiracy theories fabricated by the mob of keyboard warriors were still not missing a single word.

It was truly baffling. This world had developed to such an extent, humans had even flown into space, yet the mindset of many people still stubbornly scrutinized and emphasized the issue of a woman’s chastity. Ah no, what was even more ridiculous was that, even now, that backward ideology had spread, scrutinizing and emphasizing even the chastity issue of a grown man like Julian Sterling.

“They are just a bunch of lunatics hiding behind their screens, you should not pay them any mind.” Julian Sterling unhurriedly replied with a single sentence, his tone as cold as if he were talking about a swarm of flies. Then, before Lucas Hill had the chance to speak up and dissuade him further, Julian lowered his voice and continued, his eyes flashing with sharp calculation: “However, this matter is not something that can be completely resolved just by using connections to delete the post once or twice. Since the enemy wants to play big, this is destined to be a protracted war.”

In truth, Julian Sterling understood very clearly in his heart that he was not the first person, and society would certainly not let him be the last person to fall into this state of being fiercely cyberbullied by the mob just because he was a victim. Even if compared, Julian Sterling’s situation was merely a drop in the bucket, not nearly as terrifying as the tragedies of many others who were pushed to the absolute brink. He, in reality, was only subjected to an attempted kidnapping and had not been violated at all. Yet, just a little bit of vague leaked information, just a little bit of added embellishment, was enough to make thousands of people use it as an excuse to hurl insults to satisfy their personal malice.

Julian Sterling told himself that he was a man, and his spirit was tough, so those filthy reprimands were already considered the mildest to him. Reading them did not hurt him much at all. But out there, there were many weaker people who were genuinely victims in horrific cases. Ultimately, when facing public opinion, they had to bite their teeth and swallow the humiliation, carrying lifelong scars without daring to utter a word. Because they clearly knew the cruel reality that, once their stories were completely exposed in front of the whole world, even if they filed a lawsuit and won, even if the judge and justice stood on their side, the gaze of society and the tongues of the world might not necessarily let them off the hook.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep