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A comment on U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for social media platforms. Parent comment

Re:U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for socia... by jfengel on Friday February 05, 2021 @01:29PM (#26039571)
That threat was issued against a political candidate, which raised it to the FBI's attention. The vast majority of violent threats receive zero attention.

So it's technically correct to say that it's "just as illegal", but that's not the best kind of correct. While I'd be very interested in a directive that the FBI should take all violent threats online seriously, they don't have anywhere near that kind of resources. And I have a feeling that if they did start making numerous requests to unmask anonymous users, a lot of HN readers would oppose that as well.

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Re:U.S. Senators propose limiting liability shield for socia... by prepend on Friday February 05, 2021 @03:28PM (#26040787)
There are many threats from normal people to normal people that result in conviction. [0] I didn’t intend for my example to be representative for all.

If you report a death threat to the police and fbi it will be investigated. I think the problem is they have to be substantiated. If I just run around the town square saying “I’m going to kill you” that’s not actually a criminal death threat. So someone saying “#diaf” is not a death threat, it’s obnoxious but not a crime.

Fortunately murder rate is not correlated to internet death threats or we’d all be dead.

This doesn’t mean that platforms shouldn’t stop boorish behavior, but it’s not a crime and we probably don’t want the FBI investigating stuff that’s not a crime.

But when it is, when I think someone is going to kill me, I feel confident that I can call the law and they’ll do what they can.

[0] https://elkodaily.com/news/local/man-arrested-for-online-dea...

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