2 ms·

I don't understand... what can't you say in public? I mean, insulting someone won't get you thrown in jail...

• jameshart 11y ago
  You admitted at the top of this thread that you are minimizing online threats by calling them 'insults', and that you're doing so to push your 'free speech' agenda. You're doing it again, and it is growing tiresome. We aren't talking about 'insults', we're talking about sustained campaigns of intimidation using specific, personal threats. As an exercise, please, today, go out to a public space, pick someone at random, and follow them around for a half hour or so, hurling abusive, threatening language at them. Draw pictures of them being subjected to violent abuse and hand them to passers by. Follow them to their home, ring the doorbell, and when they answer tell them that they and their family aren't safe. I think you'll discover that your freedom of speech gets curtailed pretty quickly. Then explain why doing the same while following someone from Twitter, across internet message boards, and then calling their cellphone, is qualitatively different.
  • tomp 11y ago
    > You're doing it again, and it is growing tiresome. We aren't talking about 'insults', we're talking about sustained campaigns of intimidation using specific, personal threats. It's equally tiresome for me when you call them threats. A real threat is e.g. "Give me your money, otherwise I'll shoot you.". I'm calling them insults because I'm not taking these "threats" seriously. I believe that in the very vast majority of cases, these threats are meant only to have an emotional impact (just like insults), not to express actual intention to commit a crime (warning your target would be stupid). However, if you disagree, you can always inform the police, there are no new laws required. IIRC, some anti-GamerGate activists did that, and the police dropped their investigation, not considering the threats serious, just like me (and so far, they've never been wrong). > I think you'll discover that your freedom of speech gets curtailed pretty quickly. I think either one of two things will happen: either (1) someone will attack me, which is a crime, or (2) someone will accuse me of being politically incorrect and will try to publicly shame me in hopes of getting fired. Internet removes option (1), which I think is good, while option (2) is equally abusive as the one you're against.
• DanBC 11y ago
  Telling someone that you're going to rape and murder them isn't going to go well for you, even if you claim a freedom of speech defence.