Re:Where Online Hate Speech Can Bring the Police to Your Door
by peoplefromibiza on Monday October 10, 2022 @02:50AM
(#33148534)
> I'm going to kill professor plum in the library
but if you write it on a social network they will probably come and knock at your door.
that's the point.
when you're writing something on a globally accessible platform you're basically making a public statement and it makes all the difference
people need to realize that freedom of speech is not the same thing as freedom of publishing anything they like without consequences
Re:Where Online Hate Speech Can Bring the Police to Your Door
by michaelmrose on Monday October 10, 2022 @03:09AM
(#33148630)
In the US you can most certainly according to present interpretation say virtually anything that isn't a credible threat or a false defamatory statement. You may lose your job, your significant other, and the respect of your community but you wont end up in jail.
> Telling a kid "you're a f*ot and should kill yourself" is not protected by free speech.
This would be absolutely awful but you would be unlikely to face legal consequences.
If you were to scream it at them in a way that would suggest to an ordinary person they are in danger of attack it would be fighting words. If you merely slung it on the street you would have no realistic means of legal redress. No cop is going to arrest them for offending you nor prosecutor press charges.