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gnat
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Are answers that advise illegal/unethical actions acceptable?

In this question the OP acknowledges behaving unprofessionally in the office and is concerned that this may have been witnessed by a female colleague, who is now acting uncomfortable around him.

The highest-voted answer (even after 20 downvotes) advises that if his colleague discusses OP's unprofessional behaviour, then OP should lie about it, make a false complaint against her, and possibly seek to initiate action for defamation (which would presumably require giving false evidence to assert that her claims were untrue).

Depending on jurisdiction, this course of action is likely to involve breaking laws related to perjury and/or retaliation. Further, I would have thought it self-evident that lying and attacking a colleague to cover up one's own misconduct is grossly unethical behaviour... and yet 84 people upvoted this answer. Several other answers also endorsed the same "lie and deny" approach.

I checked the FAQs for guidance on this issue but didn't find anything relevant. Does this board have any policy or guidelines to deter answers that advocate blatantly illegal/unethical behaviour, beyond the usual downvoting mechanism? Or is "cover your ass no matter what it takes" acceptable here?

A related question covers answers that are "high risk to the OP", but my concern here is not whether this advice might backfire; it's that it might function exactly as intended.

G_B
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