if you're a trusted node in a whisper network you can isolate someone who won't doubt you by telling them how everyone they know is some kind of abuser (or even better: not saying it outright but implying it every time the person is brought up, so that it's deniable)
it happened to me and i've seen it happen to others too
this kind of thing happened often enough that i've lowered the importance of hearing "x is an abuser" statement to almost nil, *especially* if the reasoning behind it boils down to "x has bad vibes", whether stated that way or rationalized into some esoteric chain of thought
action can only be taken on specific behaviors likely to affect me or those i care about in specific ways
probably the most corrosive variation on this is "i don't allow myself to get angry because anger and conflict are bad, but depicting someone as [more] abusive is fine"
in one case this involved fabricated (it was admitted later by the one making them) claims of threats of violence and malicious self-harm
i don't know what to believe anymore. not everything people say, that's for sure
@whitequark why do you want to believe survivors in the first place?
If you have some direct observations that shift you towards believing survivors, I'd guess that these also give you info on how to deal with this.
If you've heard some good argument for "believe survivors", that argument should also guide you through how to reconcile it with the kind of situation you describe.
If you want to believe survivors because you feel like you're supposed to, I don't really see the value in doing that.
@orellanin a few years ago i would believe more or less anything anyone said about themselves, not limited to survivors. i just knew a lot of the latter