Behavior is obviously not right, but is it really harming someone else's rights? I'm having a hard time jumping from sexual innuendos to sexual predators... I think it would be a massive mistake to try to make into a crime.

Although many of these tweets clearly cross the line of tastelessness, how many sexual jokes/innuendos are less obvious and more controversial about whether they are tasteless? We don't need to criminalize this. Nobody's rights are being violated, in my opinion. We shouldn't be using the criminal system unless there is a clear threat of violence, not just some internet trolls trying to get a reaction out of a celebrity....

I agree. As the article shows, there are already repercussions for being a jackass on Twitter. If it goes beyond simply being a jackass (stalking, physical endangerment) we already have laws against those.

If these things were said in person, I think you would feel differently. It's easy to pass off actions that take place on the internet as being without consequence, but they can still do real damage. I think this same sense of detachment from consequences is what allows people to do things they would never do if they could see the recipient. I don't know what punishments are just, but it seems to me that returning a feeling of consequence to actions is how you also bring back civility.

Any of these said in person, I would not feel differently. Almost all of them make some reference to a baseball comment and then try to make a joke about Kurt's daughter based on that. They are simply assholes making poor jokes. Unless Kurt didn't post the most extreme ones (e.g. someone said "I'm going to rape your daughter when she gets here"), I feel like none of them even border the line of a creditable threat. Are we going to start arresting new comedians that make shitty jokes because they went too far trying to make fun of a celebrity? Where's the line of poor joke and creditable threat? I personally think its a lot farther away than any of the tweets Kurt posted.

You may have somewhat of a point. As I said, I'm unsure whether the commenters should be criminally punished or just as they have been already.

However, even if you would not feel differently, I don't think all of the people who said what they did would even have the nerve to say those things in person. The internet creates this imbalance where the effect of actions is felt much more by the recipient than the actor. This, at least, is not a good thing, and a slightly different context than a comedian making a tasteless joke.

You aren't most people then. If most fathers were told to their face that their daughter's hymen was about to be shredded, I can assure you that person would be in danger of serious injury!

People making these sorts of statements at work would potentially get into trouble because in some countries we have law against harassment at work and creating a hostile work environment. This situation is more like a bunch of dudes going outside someone's house on the public sidewalk and screaming obscenities. Whether or not it's a direct threat of imminent harm or not, it seems unlikely to end well for the screamers.

Except standing outside their house and screaming the contents of the tweets would surely fall closer fulfilling "true threat" doctrine than tweeting from hundreds if not thousands of miles away.

How is the teenaged girl, at whom many of these menacing tweets are directed, supposed to know where these men making menacing/threatening/disgusting remarks are?

How is she to know or understand that they're not next door, or down the street?

These are not innuendos, these are threats.

Oh give me a break... the most offensive/threatening one that was posted by Kurt on his blog was:

"Teach me your knuckleball technique so I can fist your daughter"

You really think this is a creditable threat of violence and not someone trying to make a very, very, very poor taste joke? There are very few tweets I would even consider threats, most were just scumbags trying to get some twitter fame by making terrible baseball sexual innuendos.

There are other ones like "Kurt bleeds more from his sock than gaby does when shes on her period" that in no way could even be construed as a threat, but I feel they are getting lumped into the same category, simply because they are distasteful.

Here's the problem: the woman receiving these threats has no way to know whether this is some teenager on the other side of the country or the creepy guy down the block. She has to spend time thinking about each one and wondering whether to be worried or not, or whether the harasser is going to escalate from being an ass on Twitter to contacting her friends, relatives, coworkers, etc. on email/Facebook/etc.

The one thing which I would bet on is that if something bad did happen – and given that her dad is a celebrity hated in some circles, that's less hypothetical than it might seem in your first reaction – there would be people coming out of the woodwork to ask why she didn't report it.

Unfortunately, the goal of prosecuting threats is to prevent violence, not prevent people from being scared. If the chance of violence is relatively nil, (I already argued that I believe these guys are just terrible, wanna-be comedians) I don't think there is any case to be made that these guys are anything near sexual predators, just assholes and scumbags.

The goal of prosecuting threats is because threats are violence, or at least are damaging in and of themselves.

Threats are also illegal under 18 U.S. Code § 875(c). Even if there was no intent to carry out the threat, if the threat can be interpreted by a reasonable person as being intended to cause fear, it counts as a true threat. [1]

[1] https://verdict.justia.com/2014/12/10/supreme-court-consider...

Thank you. I was about to make a similar comment. Threats are intimidation, and a form of violence.

Really? This is OK for you?

https://38pitches.files.wordpress.com/2015/03/tweets-10.jpg

Nobody said it was OK. It's dubious to call it a threat.

It's not at all that dubious. Threatening to "shred her hymen" is, well, a threat. Curt didn't know this guy, and he's a father who just had someone tell them they want to rape his daughter. I'd consider that a threat too.

Amid comments that imply she wants the(ir) D, that comment says she'll be slutting around with him, first.

Completely irrelevant. If you told me that my daughter was "slutting around", then I'd assume she was being forced. I'd be even more likely to consider you a rapist.

What makes something a threat or not is not the conclusions the recipient of the message jumps to.

Wrong. You might want to look at ''Elonis v. United States'' [1].

1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elonis_v._United_States

Not wrong, because the case you linked does not conclude that what constitutes a threat (even in this legal sense) is what the recipient of the message believes.

It did conclude that it was a threat, and amongst the finer points of the case was that Elonis argued that the test should have been whether he intended the threats or not. The jury decided that a reasonable person would have perceived the accused comments were threatening.

Even a reading of a cursory summary of this case would have told you this. Did you actually read the outcome?

What. How does your reply have any logical connection to what I wrote?

I just showed you a case where a threat constituted the conclusions the recipient jumped to. Do try to keep up.

This is the same kind of deluded apologism that the gamer gate crowd uses and it is dangerous. How can anyone judge the credibility of a threat made by a stranger on the internet? A threat is a threat.

>A threat is a threat.

I disagree completely, especially in the eyes of the law. If a comedian says he's going to kill someone, nobody is going to prosecute him. Threats have to be creditable. The tweets posted by Kurt all make some reference to his baseball career and then try to use that to make sexual jokes about his daughter. They are just terrible jokes and should be socially ostracized, but we should not be using the legal system to punish these kinds of tweets. The line is too unclear. None of the posted tweets contain any serious threat that doesn't contain some baseball innuendo, at least the ones Kurt published. There is a difference if someone said e.g. "I'm going to rape your daughter when she gets here" and that tweeter lives in the town of the school. One might be able to consider that creditable. We don't prosecute people who make others scared, we prosecute people that we believe have a creditable chance of harming another human being.

The question is, do these type of comments on Twitter cause harm? If you've read anything by people being subjected to online bullying and harassment then you know that it does cause psychological harm by itself. Especially when a number of people all start in on one person, but even one person can cause a lot of fear and harm from cyber stalking someone. Does someone doing this deserve to have their life ruined, probably not, but they should not be free from all repercussions.

I haven't read through the tweets but what crazypyro posted aren't threats, they would be considered bullying though.

Didn't the gamergate lady have actual threats on her life? I know her information was doxxed and people actually put her house in their threats.

I'm afraid yes, even if I'm one of those who suspect that there's foul play on both sides.

Can we stop dragging gamergate into this?

(Or might I suggest you read up on KotakuInAction on reddit and tell me how it is anywhere borderline close to this?)

KotakuInAction is one of the major GamerGate organizing sites – that's like telling someone to go to the Scientologist Temple for opinions on Dianetics.

… and, yes, it's rather relevant: GamerGate started with a bunch of people on 4chan attacking a stranger on social media at the behest of her ex-boyfriend but it escalated quickly to coordinated harassment on a bunch of different forms of electronic media and attempts to bring it close to home with real-world stalking at work & conferences, SWATing, etc.

That's the problem here: the people who started it might have had no intention of anything beyond enjoying making someone else unhappy but they repeated things widely and loudly enough that other people fell for the cover story and escalated it further.

Quite the opposite, Zoe Quinn herself has been discovered to have played a role in SWATing her critics [1]. Incidentally, KotakuInAction has been featured elsewhere today [2]. I agree with your last sentence.

[1] http://www.crimeandfederalism.com/2015/01/gamergate-swatting...

[2] https://www.reddit.com/r/subredditoftheday/comments/2yb80x/m...

“Quite the opposite” ignores that people involved with GamerGate have actually SWATed people (see e.g. http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jan/13/gamergate-...) and has engaged in all of the other activities I listed. Even if true, a single incident doesn't magically cancel out half a year of real harassment no matter how many times GamerGaters have tried use that logic to avoid addressing bad behaviour by their fellows.

That said, you're linking to a post written by Mike Cernovitch, one of the more vociferous people in GamerGate, where he's making the popular argument that he's the real victim here.

Again, let's review the evidence: if you read more than the headline it's immediately obvious that there was no actual SWATing or even threat to do so and, more importantly, none of it was done by Zoe Quinn. The person who actually posted his address used the information which he'd listed on a business directory before removing it and apologizing:

https://medium.com/@ManfredVonKarma/mike-cernovich-based-law...

The key thing, of course, is that he wouldn't have been able to use a stranger’s actions to justify the anti-Zoe hate campaign. If you read it closely, notice how each claim in the article starts with something true but then adds unsupported insinuations that Zoe was masterminding it in an effort to shift the ire to her rather than the person who actually wrote the post.

I agree that there was no actual SWATing in Cernovich's case. He has been reported to the LAPD (probably several times) for harassment. However he has been doxxed, and I don't know how you're saying none of it was done by Quinn. Quinn has 52K followers on twitter. I think I can conclude that her tweets are widely read. And she has repeatedly publicized dox articles. Does that make her any less guilty than actually writing those articles herself? And Quinn herself admits that doxxing and SWATing are a package deal. SWATings are usually initiated as an anonymous tip, "stranger's actions", as you put it in a different context. I don't know how the law works in the US, but if it were up to me, I'd hold the doxxer responsible for it.

The Guardian article is probably right in naming baphomet (on 8chan), but then follows it up with some very shady language to link it with KiA. I have visited baphomet a few times, and they seem to be doing their own thing, whatever that may be.

As far as I know, Reddit has very strict policies in place to discourage doxxing (except on r/doxme). KotakuInAction, the one you called gamergate's organizing site, cannot be involved in doxxing. Though I'm not a regular reader, I visit it every few weeks to see what they're up to. Not only have I not seen any doxxing there, I have seen threads discouraging such behavior. Also see their Rule #2: "This is the quickest way to a ban, not just from us, but the Reddit admins. Seriously, don’t do it. Take every effort to ensure that your posts do not include any personal information, especially in screenshots."

Oh, go away! These links are hardly credible.

It very much seems like KiA is subbreddit of the day.

If you have reason to believe otherwise, please bring the links. ;-)

(Now, if you don't mind, take a minute to consider what you have just said in your last comments.)

Reddit is not a reliable source of information. Full stop.

It as the only reliable source on what is subreddit-of-the-day though.

And you still haven't provided evidence of anything else.

As the sign next to the radios used to say: think-push-speak.

What's your point? It's not a reliable source that Zoe Quinn called in a Swot team against someone falsely!

No, I didn't mention that link, which btw isn't from reddit but from someones blog. (I haven't made up my mind on that one but it seems he makes a leap yes.)

I'm trying to point out that you are acting as if you have already made up you mind: whatever the facts, gg-ers are wrong.

In this case it seems you are, among other things, denying that KiA is Subreddit-of-the-day. Which is very easy to prove.

I suggest you read through this very carefully and find out exactly what you commented on instead of jumping to conclusions[1]. Because, you know, -this isn't reddit.

[1]: Protip: This often a good idea elsewhere as well.

I misread the original post. I apologise, you are correct about the second link. I stand by my comments on the first link, but I've been very silly in commenting about the second one. Sorry about that.

Please though, stop making personal attacks.

No problem : )

> Please though, stop making personal attacks.

Sorry. My apologies for that. Will stop.

As opposed to the credible links you have provided?

I need to provide credible links to prove that someone didn't do something?

How about shedding light on the matter with actual information rather than trying to score with empty rhetoric? I'm sorry if I'm asking for too much.

Yep. If KiA isn't Subreddit of the day that should be easy to prove.

What? He's providing the link to reddit to prove that Zoe Quinn called in a Swot team. The source is reliable for matters on Reddit, but that's not what we are discussing.

NO!

Now you start reading before making assumptions!

SERIOUSLY: The reddit link is about KiA being subreddit-of-the-day.

The other link is about the Swot[sic] team, and it is NOT on reddit.

Now you wait until you are sober and/or ready to read before you comment : )

You are correct, I misread the original post. I apologise for that - the error is mine.

> KotakuInAction is one of the major GamerGate organizing sites – that's like telling someone to go to the Scientologist Temple for opinions on Dianetics.

The ideaisn't too bad in this particular case when the question is "what do gamergaters write?" : )

> repeated things widely and loudly enough that other people fell for the cover story and escalated it further.

this reminds me of someone else.

I do occasionally glance at KIA, and frankly it is terrifying. There are a lot of angry, naive people there.

You don't feel like that behavior harmed his daughter's rights? If so, that is pretty disturbing.

Sexual criminals? really? for words on twitter? There is no question that this kind of behavior is repugnant, but should it really be illegal? The tweets I read are abhorrent, but hardly credible threats.

To me, the best kind of sanction for this is exactly what's happening: social shaming and exclusion. But it falls quite a bit short of something that requires legal involvement.

I totally agree, the right course of action here is just good ol' fashioned public shaming. There's really no reason to bring the judicial system into this as it would be very taxing on that system to prosecute this type of behavior.

A good deterrent to making these kind of public comments is the social pressure of others around you knowing that you in fact act/think this horrible way.

Yes, for words on twitter. We should not live in the world where any kind of rape threat is tolerable. Period.

This, or threat of murder or serious injury should be not acceptable in any form.

Too many people seem to misunderstand that 'freedom of speech' does not mean 'freedom from repercussions'. Pretty glad to read jobs had been lost as a result of this.

Also, I believe a person's freedom of speech ends when speech creates a real threat to another person's safety. These kinds of tweets definitely create a threat to the recipient's safety.

In that case the boundaries of freedom are not defined by the constitution any more, but by private parties. Therefore any constitutional stipulation of 'freedom of speech' is practically worthless. Freedom can not only be measured by the existence of a constitutional construct.

When it's between two private parties, you're damn right that the boundaries of freedom are defined by those two parties. Freedom of Speech only applies to the government and to government use of force.

I'm sure the guys who penned the constitution would agree that it wasn't about giving you the freedom to act like a jackass without repercussions.

Too many people seem to justify their lynch ochlocratic actions on the internet by saying "freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from repercussions."

There's a difference between "freedom from legal repercussions", and "if you tweet this people all over will think you're a scumbag and maybe even a creep, and in the real world this has repercussions that don't have to involve the justice system".

Too many people seem to justify their disgusting and mysogynistic comments by saying "I have a right to free speech".

Too many people seem to think they are the moral authority on what reprocussions are appropriate.

Not at all. Should you not be free to hire and fire your employees depending on who you want to represent your company? Or are you advocating some sort of affirmative action for asshats?

You're totally right. If I managed a team of employees and I saw this in the news the next day, there's no way I would keep that person employed.

On an unrelated note, I think you win the best username award :P

I'm surprised people are defending these guys. Maybe we're just so used to internet trolls, but the medium doesn't change the fact that we have laws against hate speech and threats. This kind of behavior is just not acceptable, it's a stain on the human race. It's these kinds of trolls that make life really difficult for women online. I'm glad they're learning there's consequences.

I'm afraid the result will be the same as file sharing. There was Napster which was killed by labels, then Kazza which was 10x harder to kill, then torrents which are 100x harder to kill. If they manage to kill it something new will be there.

The solution is quite simple: if you're not willing to ignore trolls, don't use this kind of social network.

You should NOT drag your family into the business, not even if PR person will tell you that it increases your brand equity.

You know, there are kinds of law enforcement response between "ignore it entirely" and "destroy someone's life forever".

Agreed. I think a reasonable compromise would be to create a unique distinction such as "online harassment" and "online sexual harassment" at misdemeanor and felony levels depending on the severity of the offense.

I can't edit my comment above anymore so I'll add my addendum here.

I am saddened by the responses I have seen below from HNers.

The story relates to sexual threats of violence and rape of a minor. I stated that the offenders should be prosecuted and IF CONVICTED dealt with strictly under the applicable laws.

Our society is slipping into a nasty place where people feel that it is quite appropriate and acceptable to threaten and harass others online.

I think that it is a practice that needs to be stamped out, regardless of whether the threats are by men against women or vice versa; racial, homophobic or religious.

It shouldn't be tolerated by the mainstream, which when you look on twitter, often appears to be the case.

Yes lets ruin people's life for a tweet written in 20 seconds of mental derangement. Insane.

That's not what happened. If you read the original blog post, you'll see a sustained, violent screed directed at him and his daughter. It wasn't one tweet, it was a series of tweets over a period of many days. Did this ruin anyone's life? Doubtful. Losing your job is not the end of the world. And you know what? These are young kids. My hope is that this is a serious wake-up call for them to take adult responsibility for themselves.

>People who get caught doing this need to be prosecuted, and if convicted, labeled as sexual criminals and placed on a register.

Ridiculous. Maybe we should prosecute people who talk about overthrowing the government on twitter with treason - they're threats! And safety is important!

These threats on the internet aren't acceptable, but neither is your reaction to them. There is a vast difference between threatening someone and actually doing something, and the way our criminal justice system treats sexual crimes borders on cruel and unusual.

You're saying that someone should have the rest of their life ruined because they made a lewd threat on the internet? We've all heard the story of the kid who went streaking on a dare but happened to be near a playground so now he's labeled a sexual predator for the rest of his life. Do you really think that is a good response to this kind of thing?

>As a father myself, this kind of behaviour makes me sick and I cannot understand people who feel they need to defend these kinds of sick comments.

Punishing someone won't ease the anxiety you feel about the safety of your kids; there will always be something else waiting to ruin their innocence. You probably confuse people saying your reaction to these comments is extreme with people defending the comments. Regardless, you want to label someone a sexual predator so that you can feel better about the fact that you're scared for your kids. That is disgusting and scarier to me than anonymous threats to my family on the internet.

I think you're engaging in the common fallacy of dismissing things that happen on the internet as "not real." It's long past time we, as a society, grew out of such childish thinking.

As parent pointed out, these things occur in "real life" and are no less extreme. Streaking, being underage and sexting, having consensual relationships with someone slightly younger but under the age of consent, etc.

You read his statement different then I did. He's not saying that people who makes these statements be labelled as sex offenders. He's saying that people who make these statements be brought to task. If a law has been violated, then charged, and if the court determines there is reason to label them as a sex offender, then so be it.

From grandparent:

> ...labeled as sexual criminals and placed on a register.

I understand you're pointing out the fact that grandparent said "if convicted," but parent's point is that _even if convicted_, being put on a registry for the rest of your life is extreme.

Nice misquote.

..and if convicted..

The case in point relates to harassment and threats of rape here.

What part of that isn't illegal exactly?

Streaking near a playground without knowing of it and threatening to rape someone's daughter are completely different things. Telling anyone that they want their daughter to bleed into their underwear because you raped them is sickening, intimidating and frankly sexual violence.

Since when did this become acceptable?

It's not acceptable. This doesn't mean it needs to be illegal.

Schilling took a stand and it seems like he got decent justice as it is. Why the knee jerk reaction that more laws must be needed?

Hold your horses. There are many crimes that don't put people on a life-ruining sexual predator list. Murder for example. That doesn't make them 'acceptable'.

I don't think this crime should go on that special list. I think a reasonable maximum for this crime is a few months in prison, similar to misdemeanor battery.

I don't think the register is justifiable at all, to be honest. We don't have it where I live (Australia) and we don't have higher levels of sexual assault than the U.S. (our rates are still too high).

If that was the point you were making, I apologise as I misunderstood you.

I wasn't making that point in this specific post, but I agree. It's a 'tough on crime' measure that doesn't actually help things.

"Tough on crime" almost never works. Appreciate your comments :-)

The examples include threats of rape against his underage daughter. How on earth do people here find that acceptable? Would it be acceptable if she was 16, 15, 12..?

It wouldn't be acceptable if she was 30 or 90.

Schilling is just being a crybaby, and you are flat insane. Man up, for Christ's sake, and stop being little babies!

The people who lost their jobs over making some offensive tweets are the crybabies. Get another job! Man up!

That's what I did, and it worked for me. If ViolentAcrez can get another job, these mooks can, too. I have no patience for crybabies.