Justices weigh limits of free speech over Internet
15 replies, posted
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WASHINGTON – Anthony Elonis claimed he was just kidding when he posted a series of graphically violent rap lyrics on Facebook about killing his estranged wife, shooting up a kindergarten class and attacking an FBI agent.
But his wife didn't see it that way. Neither did a federal jury.
Elonis, who's from Bethlehem, Pa., was convicted of violating a federal law that makes it a crime to threaten another person.
In a far-reaching case that probes the limits of free speech over the Internet, the Supreme Court on Monday was to consider whether Elonis' Facebook posts, and others like it, deserve protection under the First Amendment.
Elonis argues that his lyrics were simply a crude and spontaneous form of expression that should not be considered threatening if he did not really mean it. The government says it does not matter what Elonis intended, and that the true test of a threat is whether his words make a reasonable person feel threatened.
One post about his wife said, "There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts."
The case has drawn widespread attention from free-speech advocates who say comments on Facebook, Twitter and other social media can be hasty, impulsive and easily misinterpreted. They point out that a message on Facebook intended for a small group could be taken out of context when viewed by a wider audience.
"A statute that proscribes speech without regard to the speaker's intended meaning runs the risk of punishing protected First Amendment expression simply because it is crudely or zealously expressed," said a brief from the American Liberties Union and other groups.
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[url]http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/11/30/justices-weigh-limits-free-speech-over-internet/[/url]
Threats should be illegal because they represent an actual danger to another person,, not because it scares the other person. If it can be asserted that the person making the threat has no intention or capacity to hurt another person, then there's literally no reason for what they're saying to be illegal.
There is an ambiguity to text that is very hard to interpret when simply reading it from a social network page.
Unless he directly says "I plan on killing/physically harming *insert name*" I wouldn't perceive any of these things as direct threats, simply because they are hyperbolic. If he had a history of actually doing that sort of thing, it would be a little different, but as a zero-time offender with no history of violence outside of words, I don't believe that he deserves to be put in jail over those posts.
There are clauses to free speech that allow violent speak if any reasonable person would perceive it to be a joke, then it is considered a joke. That's why comedians are allowed to go on stage and make dead baby jokes if they want. Since he was prosecuted purely on text, it's harder to get an idea of whether or not he said these things with malicious intent, or just for a way to sarcastically vent his frustrations.
[QUOTE=Mort Stroodle;46607352]Threats should be illegal because they represent an actual danger to another person,, not because it scares the other person. If it can be asserted that the person making the threat has no intention or capacity to hurt another person, then there's literally no reason for what they're saying to be illegal.[/QUOTE]
What danger do they ever present? If person A threatens person B, either person A actually has intent to harm and they have given person B warning, or, person A has no intent to harm and the worst they have done is scare person B.
well, we can trust the justice system to fuck everything up anyways when it comes to internet and free-speech as well as surveillance of said speech so i doubt this will go in his favor, i mean it would allow the NSA and FBI to continue their programs under the pretext of patrolling the internet for threats
[QUOTE=zakedodead;46609131]What danger do they ever present? If person A threatens person B, either person A actually has intent to harm and they have given person B warning, or, person A has no intent to harm and the worst they have done is scare person B.[/QUOTE]
if i tell you "im going to kill you" over the internet, it's not very scary. but if i say "im going to kill you, your home phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx and your home address is bla bla and you work at bla bla bla bla" over the internet, it's a whole lot scarier and should be taken a whole lot more seriously.
Regardless of what decision they come to, there will always be a part of the internet that objects to it. They really aren't capable of pleasing everybody here.
Heard about this through a friend of mine in JSA who had to defend the guy in a mock court. Apparently the guy sees it as a therapeutic thing to rap. Posed no legitimate threat to his wife, a kindergarten, or the FBI.
[QUOTE=Quark:;46610346]if i tell you "im going to kill you" over the internet, it's not very scary. but if i say "im going to kill you, your home phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx and your home address is bla bla and you work at bla bla bla bla" over the internet, it's a whole lot scarier and should be taken a whole lot more seriously.[/QUOTE]
Yeah but in this hypothetical context (I wouldn't kill you, bullets are expensive and the legality of immigration, gun procurement and I'm a lazy sod preclude me from carrying this out), but what if I knew all those details and chose to keep it hidden, only to come over and kill you anyway?
True intent, like tone in e-mails, is ambiguous. It's not like every murderous villian will have to bore you to death with a dull, gloating monologue before they kill the protagonist. Some of them just go straight ahead and do it anyway.
It's still scary if someone says they want to kill someone over the internet, especially in light of the fact that their actual intent can never be known, which makes it even more frightening. The weight of those words need to be held up to account here rather than the intent.
[QUOTE=Chernobyl426;46612285]Heard about this through a[b] friend of mine in JSA[/b] who had to defend the guy in a mock court. Apparently the guy sees it as a therapeutic thing to rap. Posed no legitimate threat to his wife, a kindergarten, or the FBI.[/QUOTE]
Does he know Batman?
I think at the very least it warrants investigation into the individual when they're saying things like "I'm going to kill my ex-wife, I'm going to shoot up a school."
[editline]1st December 2014[/editline]
[QUOTE=Quark:;46610346]if i tell you "im going to kill you" over the internet, it's not very scary. but if i say "im going to kill you, your home phone number is xxx-xxx-xxxx and your home address is bla bla and you work at bla bla bla bla" over the internet, it's a whole lot scarier and should be taken a whole lot more seriously.[/QUOTE]
If someone on facepunch messaged me that they were going to kill me, I wouldn't even remember it the next day. If my ex-husband wrote on facebook that he was going to or wanted to kill me, that's a bit different. The source and target relation of these threats make a difference too.
[QUOTE=snookypookums;46612320]Yeah but in this hypothetical context (I wouldn't kill you, bullets are expensive and the legality of immigration, gun procurement and I'm a lazy sod preclude me from carrying this out), but what if I knew all those details and chose to keep it hidden, only to come over and kill you anyway?
True intent, like tone in e-mails, is ambiguous. It's not like every murderous villian will have to bore you to death with a dull, gloating monologue before they kill the protagonist. Some of them just go straight ahead and do it anyway.
It's still scary if someone says they want to kill someone over the internet, especially in light of the fact that their actual intent can never be known, which makes it even more frightening. The weight of those words need to be held up to account here rather than the intent.[/QUOTE]
I still don't get how a death threat on the internet is scary, I get them every day
this is how people represent my town nationally, niiiiiiice
[QUOTE=lazyguy;46612910]Does he know Batman?[/QUOTE]
Junior State of America
It's kind of funny that threats over the Internet are more likely to be punished than verbal threats.
Has no one ever listened to Eminem?
[video=youtube;E67UQTOvH6M]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E67UQTOvH6M[/video]
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