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No those are completely different. The physical act of owning an explosive can be made illegal and is. In the US the act of owning and expressing an element of
by KingMachiavelli 5y ago
No those are completely different. The physical act of owning an explosive can be made illegal and is. In the US the act of owning and expressing an element of speech is protected under US law.
You are getting close to something with you second statement. There are laws that criminalize actions like yelling 'Fire' inside a movie theater or provoking a fight (fighting words). Essentially these laws isolate the protected 'speech' from a non-speech and therefore non-protected 'action'.
However, it would be an extreme stretch to apply or expand these to apply to simply wearing a t-shirt. There is already plenty of case law that says wearing/displaying symbols or profanity is not enough to be considered fighting words/act. Heck, in most cases just using a racial epithet is not enough to be considered fighting words and/or hate speech. [1]
At most you will ever be able to convict is if someone is installing these adversarial images on public property (e.g street signs). In that case you might be able to use the harmful nature/intent of the images to elevate what would otherwise be a vandalism charge to assault. Essentially there needs to be a distinct and meaningful 'action' beyond just wearing/expressing speech.
[1] https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/federal-court-saying-the-n-word-to-two-black-people-does-not-qualify-as-fighting-words/ar-BB1gCKdu https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/federal-court-saying-the-n...
- boomboomsubban 5y ago> The physical act of owning an explosive can be made illegal and is. Then let me change my example to show legal items being used with the intent to cause harm is still illegal. I'm free to put razors into candy, but if I hand it out on Halloween it'd be illegal. >However, it would be an extreme stretch to apply or expand these to apply to simply wearing a t-shirt. There is already plenty of case law that says wearing/displaying symbols or profanity is not enough to be considered fighting words/act. This hypothetical T-shirt isn't comparable to fighting words, wearing it would unquestionably cause harm to the relevant ones who encounter it. Owning or creating it might not be a crime, but wearing it in public is endangering the public.
- brokenmachine 5y ago>wearing it in public is endangering the public. Only because you're driving a car that was programmed by monkeys and sold by PT Barnum. If your car can't tell the difference between a street sign and a T-shirt, it's really not fully self driving, is it?
- boomboomsubban 5y agoI agree that it's a ridiculous hypothetical and any company shipping something like that should also face punishment.
- nemo44x 5y agoOnly the company shipping that should face punishment. Their code instructed a machine to kill people, etc. The hypothetical t-shirt is data, not code. These are very important distinctions. Code needs to be responsible for its data. I’d even argue that to be used on public road that any self driving code needs to be open source.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago>Their code instructed a machine to kill people, etc. The hypothetical t-shirt is data, not code. It is data you are intentionally using to hurt someone. If a person legally gained access to a water treatment plant and sent inputs to poison the water, you wouldn't say that person only sent data and the code was at fault. The shirt is inputting data into the car the same way. Tools should be made with safety in mind, but when people use them to cause harm the person is at fault too.
- brokenmachine 5y agoIf I made a computer that explodes and catches fire when you type certain words into it, is it then the typists fault if that word gets typed? Or have I been negligent by creating a device that is unable to process certain words without exploding? ie it can't do it's job properly and safely. This hypothetical car is too badly designed to ignore things that aren't road signs. A 5 year old can recognize if something is a road sign or not, and we don't let them drive. That's how pathetic this car is. Of course it shouldn't be allowed on a public road, and it shouldn't be allowed to be sold because it is unsafe.