Re:Twitter Just Permanently Suspended Conservative Writer Mi...
by smt88 on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @04:41AM
(#12127611)
It wasn't really fighting words. Yiannopoulos is smart and may have had some legal advice on top of that, so he never does anything that crosses the (legal) line.
"Inciting" was a reference to the effect he created, without suggesting that we can be certain it was intentional.
Re:Twitter Just Permanently Suspended Conservative Writer Mi...
by dragonwriter on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @02:41PM
(#12131417)
> It wasn't really fighting words. Yiannopoulos is smart and may have had some legal advice on top of that, so he never does anything that crosses the (legal) line.
Fighting words are not illegal (unless specifically prohibited by statute), they are just outside the Constitutional protection against regulation. So, you could engage in fighting words without crossing any legal line.
But, even if it is protected speech, freedom of speech means that private parties (like Twitter) are generally free to choose not to relay your speech, too.
Re:Twitter Just Permanently Suspended Conservative Writer Mi...
by zamalek on Wednesday July 20, 2016 @05:05AM
(#12127689)
I realized my mistake while smoking, you beat me to the edit/delete.
> legal
Is there any way for his lawyers to know for certain? Online harassment is still incredibly murky in terms of precedent.
> article: a day after he incited his followers to bombard Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones with racist and demeaning tweets.
That sounds like fighting words[1] to me. Which, at least under the American constitution, is not covered by FoS. There's going to be internet fallout though, on the internet FoS is synonymous with "say whatever I want to say."
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_words