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0 pointsPhasmaFelis12y ago0 comments

By "unpopular speech", do you mean the AT&T bit, or the harassment bit? If the latter, I disagree. A free and fair society can certainly draw a line between "unpopular speech" and "criminal harassment."

If I were to threaten to murder you, you wouldn't expect the police to say "Eh, nothing we can do, he's got a right to free speech. Call us back after he shoots you, you'll have a case then."

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jrockway12y ago

If I were to threaten to murder you, you wouldn't expect the police to say "Eh, nothing we can do, he's got a right to free speech. Call us back after he shoots you, you'll have a case then."

This is the problem with thought experiments regarding crime: they always make the facts 100% certain, when in real life, the facts are never 100% certain. If we were to rephrase your thought experiment, it would be:

"Some guy said some other guy was going to kill him. Let's throw that some other guy in prison for a while, just in case."

Not quite as clear-cut as you think, is it?

PhasmaFelisOP12y ago

"Not quite as clear-cut as you think, is it?"

Weev did literally threaten to murder Kathy Sierra, and he then bragged about doing so on multiple public websites. So, yes, it is quite clear-cut.

(And, please, at least think for a minute before you try to rebut by saying that he didn't mean it, so it shouldn't count.)

jrockway12y ago

Were you at the keyboard when he was typing this message?

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tedunangst12y ago

If only there were some way to determine what was meant. Barring that, maybe it's best not go around saying such things if you can't even convince one out of twelve people that you weren't serious.

Regardless of whether you truly intend to carry out the threat, the threat itself is a form of violence. It imposes your will on an unwilling subject.

If you rob a bank with an unloaded gun, you can't claim afterwards, "oh, they were perfectly safe and didn't actually have to give me the money, so therefore it wasn't a crime."

jrockway12y ago

No, you missed my point. My point is that anyone can accuse anyone of a crime, so the law has to reduce the incentive for someone to make something up to get attention or revenge. "He said he would kill me," is nearly impossible to prove, so if you punish it severely, you create a cure that's worse than the disease. If you restrict it to certified letters, though, then you have a better balance.

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jrockway12y ago

If I were to threaten to murder you, you wouldn't expect the police to say "Eh, nothing we can do, he's got a right to free speech. Call us back after he shoots you, you'll have a case then."

"Some guy said some other guy was going to kill him. Let's throw that some other guy in prison for a while, just in case."

Not quite as clear-cut as you think, is it?

PhasmaFelisOP12y ago

"Not quite as clear-cut as you think, is it?"

Weev did literally threaten to murder Kathy Sierra, and he then bragged about doing so on multiple public websites. So, yes, it is quite clear-cut.

(And, please, at least think for a minute before you try to rebut by saying that he didn't mean it, so it shouldn't count.)

jrockway12y ago

Were you at the keyboard when he was typing this message?

1 more reply

tedunangst12y ago

If only there were some way to determine what was meant. Barring that, maybe it's best not go around saying such things if you can't even convince one out of twelve people that you weren't serious.

Regardless of whether you truly intend to carry out the threat, the threat itself is a form of violence. It imposes your will on an unwilling subject.

If you rob a bank with an unloaded gun, you can't claim afterwards, "oh, they were perfectly safe and didn't actually have to give me the money, so therefore it wasn't a crime."

jrockway12y ago

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