That's a good point... Zimbardo could claim that anything but the agreed-upon safe words were to be understood as part of the act they were hired for. Then, I imagine that it would be very hard to show beyond reasonable doubt intent to actually falsely imprison someone.

However, the original article claimed that the consent form had no such agreement -- Zimbardo merely claimed so in a phone interview.

Furthermore, given that Zimbardo's rebuttal is 18 pages long, you'd think that he'd at least briefly comment on the accusation of potentially criminal behavior.

You appear not to understand the concept of a safe word.

The entire point of a safe word is that it is SHORT and MEMORABLE, not long and generic. "I quit the experiment" is a highly generic phrase, easily forgotten. Calling that phrase a "safe word" is absolutely absurd.

Also, even if I accepted your argument that "I quit the experiment" Is somehow a "safe word"-- it still wouldn't be technically correct to say, because it's not a word, it's a phrase / sequence of words. Have you ever heard of a "Safe phrase?" Me neither. That's because making a "safe word" a phrase completely defeats the concept of a safe word. It needs to be short enough to be said and understood in as little time as possible. Making a "safe word" a phrase instead of a short and easily-communicable SINGLE WORD is so deceptive and intellectually dishonest that it's clearly a willful and intentional misunderstanding of the safe-word concept. It's trickery, pure and simple.

Good safe word: "Banana."

Bad safe word: "Stop."

Terrible to the point of being unusable safe word: "I quit the experiment."

Zimbardo's lack of addressing this issue in his so-called "rebuttal": pathetic.