Should possibly inflammatory Tweets be protected as free speech?

In my mind, people should only be prosecuted if there is credible evidence that they will actually do something, as opposed to just saying it.

Like “i’m gonna blow up tha airport lol!” should not be prosecuted.

But “i’m gonna blow up tha airport and I have bomb making supplies in my basement” should be.

Your mileage may vary.

I don’t believe speech using a proprietary company’s web site is protected. I think the company can do whatever they want, from banning the speech to turning it over to a federal agency. I don’t believe there is any real expectation of privacy, when we know the government can subpoena our emails and everything else we write if they feel it necessary.

“Credible evidence” being key here as @Fiddle_Playing_Creole_Bastard states.
Who has not said they wished someone were dead or they could just kill someone. It doesn’t mean I would really kill them, just that they are annoying me at the moment.
I think the two instances you refer to are just off the cuff remarks that should not be prosecuted or in any way punished.

I can understand the tweet about blowing up the airport being taken seriously and getting some attention. You can’t even say bomb in an airport without getting a lot of attention. It’s a matter of security for the airports and their passengers.

Freedom of speech =/= freedom from possible punishment for what we say. It just means we can say it. It’s our responsibility to think before we speak (or tweet/text/email/post/whatever) and we are responsible for what we say/do.

I don’t think of it so much as a free speech issue per se, as a common sense and horribly inappropriate over-reaction on the part of others. People say stuff they don’t mean. People who investigate and persecute should be very intelligent and considerate. Those two examples, as described above, sound like ridiculous overreactions to me.

In the second example the guy was just forced to resign. No criminal action. He had the right to say stupid shit and he also has the right to be held accountable for the stupid shit he says.

Free Speech, Slander, Libel are all legal terms that need to be judged in a court of law.

Ths first case involed a stupid tweet threatening to blow-up an airport. For the police not to investigate would have been a dereliction of duty. Under UK law, sending menacing communications is a matter of strict liability – if you do it, then there is no defence of “I was joking”. So his trial focused on “Did he do it?”. He did, so he was convicted.

The second case involves an elected councillor, not a government official, and he has indeed been arrested for it. Which seems fair enough, given that his tweet was a direct incitement to violence. OK, he was probably joking, but I doubt Ms Alibi-Brown, the object of his tweet, found it very funny. I would expect the police to issue him with a caution.

I see no reason why speech and actions which are illegal offline should be protected because they occur online.

Just because “we have free speech” doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be evaluated from time to time for a perceived threat. So tweeting “I’m going to blow up this airport” by an otherwise competent adult could reasonably be perceived as an actual threat, even if the means don’t exist to carry out the threat ‘right now’. Who’s to know whether that is or is not the case until an investigation is done?

So it’s reasonable for a ‘potential threat’ such as that to be at least investigated. If the investigation requires an arrest and interrogation or a search warrant, the whole nine yards, then so be it. The person was free to express frustration in any number of ways; to do the equivalent of shouting it out loud to all of his ‘followers’—again, assuming that he understands the medium to / through which he’s communicating, and the meaning of the words he’s using—then I don’t have a problem with “an investigation”.

What @meiosis said.

BTW, Describing Yasmin Alibhai-Brown as a ‘militant Muslim’ is either born out of ignorance, wilful mendacity or an debilitatingly unbalanced world view.

@meiosis Ignorance and I apologize. Thanks for the link! I heard the story on the radio and got that impression. It sounded from the report that she was approving of stoning but that may be wrong. Usually, I like to link to sources but didn’t have the time to track down the full story. Again, apologies.

I do not have a clear stance on this issue which is why I thought it an interesting question to raise. There was no agenda here.

@janbb No worries. I think my ‘idiotic muslim bashing’ receptors have been turned up too high by some of the other questions on this site, and I pounced a bit too readily.

Yes, as long as they aren’t threats toward and individual.

Investigation of threats should be investigated – I don’t consider it a free speech issue at all. If that had been spoken at an airport and overheard, I should hope the person would be taken aside.

As for the arrest of the counselor, this again is why I’m glad I’m in the U.S. and not Europe when it comes to free speech issues. The tweet in question is below:

“Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing, really.”

Grossly inappropriate. He should be called on to explain. However, to arrest officials for this kind of speech will stifle political debate. For something to be incitement here, as Justice Brandeis has stated, ”[f]ear of serious injury alone [does not qualify]. Men feared witches and burnt women. it is the function of speech to free men from the bondage of irrational fears. To justify suppression of free speech there must be reasonable grounds to believe that the danger apprehended is imminent. There must be reasonable ground to believe that the evil to be prevented is a serious one.”

The whole point of free speech is to allow us to have good information. That requires a whole bunch of bad information too. However, if politicians are in an environment where they don’t feel free to say something like the above, they won’t say it. But they’ll still think it. And because no one is saying anything about it, they can hold onto ideas that are patently odious, and can vote based on those ideas.

@iamthemob If preventing calls for a woman to be attacked (a woman who has received very real death threats in the past from Islamic fundamentalists, and whose teenage daughter was terrified by this one) stifles ‘political debate’, then the level of debate is frankly pathetic. Should all speech by politicians be protected lest we be accused of stifling debate?

Quoting US jurisprudence is pointless. Under UK law sending menacing communications is illegal. That’s a ‘freedom’ I’m happy to be without.

@iamthemob I’m not entirely certain how to interpret ”[i]nvestigation of threats should be investigated”, so I’m going to assume that you meant simply that “threats should be investigated”. (The redundancy could be an interesting comedy / satire sketch, but I don’t think that’s what you had in mind.)

I’m going to disagree with @MeinTeil, in that even non-individualized threats should be investigated.

I agree with @meiosis—and with UK law, apparently—that ‘menacing’ and ‘threatening’ (in terms of personal menace and threat, as opposed to patently obvious non-threats such as ‘Manchester is going to kill Liverpool next week’) are not protected forms of speech. I also don’t agree with German law that makes mere pro-Nazi speech illegal—although I understand the particular history there—and I never understood American persecution / prosecution of “Communists” in the United States, other than “Communist agents” in government, which is a different matter altogether. I think that Communists, especially in the US and Western Europe, are the stupidest people in the world, but there should be no reason to suppress them as speakers.

Bring on robust debate! Nix to threats, however generalized and de-personalized.

@meiosis – as free democratic countries, you are allowed to judge what you are willing to give up in terms of your freedom. There are both benefits and drawbacks to it. But U.S. jurisprudence is apt in the conversation because I was talking about the difference between U.S. concepts of free speech as opposed to Europe’s, not to say that the tweet wasn’t a violation of U,K, law – it clearly appears to be.

But because speech is subjective, the danger of allowing the government to regulate it to this extent is that oppression can be subtle. And terms like menacing and threatening are problematic – what’s menacing? Threatening? Is insulting menacing? The lines become far too fuzzy and manipulable.

@CyanoticWasp – thank you for assuming satire, I appreciate the intellectual benefit of the doubt. However, you are right – that was a brain fart.

@iamthemob Is telephoning or writing to someone them and threatening to hurt them a crime in the US, or is that protected speech? If the former, then it is exactly the same as the UK, if the latter then I think it is taking freedom of speech too far.

@meiosis – It’s not a crime at all. It does bring you under suspicion. If it’s continued behavior, it can qualify as stalking under certain state statutes. If the threat is brought to the police, an investigation can begin.

But that situation is distinctly different from both the ones above. As I said, the airport threat being investigated is clearly fine – particularly considering that, from a U.S. perspective, ports of entry are areas where rights are limited due to the fact that they are designed to suit a particular government purpose, and general safety is involved.

Also, the threat discussed here wasn’t a threat on someone’s life, but a ridiculously inappropriate statement that “can someone please do this?” In the U.S., if there were a clear and present danger that it would actually happen because of the statement, a person can be arrested. A tweet to the general public would not qualify.

There is also a “fighting words” exception to free speech – for instance, if you yell “I’m going to fucking kill you” at someone in the street, the police can step in and take you into custody if you don’t calm down and leave the area under certain “disturbing the peace” statutes.

Also, there are civil standards that are lower than criminal ones, and a person can be sued for making threatening remarks that result in violence where they might not be arrested.

Therefore, there are ways that negative consequences can be regulated – this is more along the lines of pre-regulation. Consider “Minority Report” as an example. Saying you’re going to do something may be a heat of the moment thing – doing it is another. Telling someone to do something means they can decide to do it. But if we arrest at the point of speech, we never really know if the intent can be followed through with. So, we end up with potentially thousands of false positives, as we don’t have the ability to predict the future as in “Minority Report” (which, as we saw, had it’s own ethical and moral problems even with the predictive capabilities).

I don’t think you’re correct in your statement that “it’s not a crime at all”, @iamthemob. Threats of bodily harm (including ‘mere speech’) can be construed as extortion, even if they may not always be prosecuted on their own as “intimidation”. You may not be prosecuted for threatening, for example, “to ruin” someone if there’s doubt about whether that means professional or person reputation, finance, business… or life, but threats in general are actionable as “assault”. They may not be sufficiently prosecuted in many cases (which is one of the reasons for our awful problems with “domestic violence” and stalking), but the laws are there.

@CyanoticWasp – It’s not in and of itself a crime. In certain situations, it can qualify as one – but a mere threat in a vacuum will not be considered a crime in the U.S. Threats are not assault, as assault requires that the person attempt to or purposefully causing bodily injury to another, which is not the same as a threat. Menacing is a possibility in some jurisdictions, but a single threat will not, as I mentioned, in the absence of more evidence of credibility or it being of a repeated nature, be considered menacing.

The problem is not prosecution, but rather additional elements necessary. As I said, this is a single threat. I showed some situations could become a criminal act, but the example given was solely speech. There must be a reasonable threat that the speech will turn into action for anyone to take police action towards the individual.

@iamthemob
From legal dictionary the definition for “assault” is:
An assault is carried out by a threat of bodily harm coupled with an apparent, present ability to cause the harm. It is both a crime and a tort and, therefore, may result in either criminal or civil liability. Generally, the common law definition is the same in criminal and Tort Law. There is, however, an additional Criminal Law category of assault consisting of an attempted but unsuccessful Battery.

Statutory definitions of assault in the various jurisdictions throughout the United States are not substantially different from the common-law definition.

The battery doesn’t necessarily have to occur, although usually one charge follows the other in practice: “assault and battery”.

@iamthemob Terroistic threatening can be deemed on words alone and the person doing it can be arrested for it. My ex-husband threatened to kill me and my son. He was arrested for the threats and I got a protection from abuse order against him (basically a restraining order) because I believed he would do it and it caused me fear of imminent harm. Threatening someone with words can and will get people in trouble here in the states too.

Saying you are going to blow up an airport could meet the definition above of a terroristic threat because it could cause a reaction by law enforcement and the airport. Asking for someone to please stone someone else could also be seen as a terroristic threat if the person he was asking to have stone truly felt threatened.

@CyanoticWasp – please read “coupled with” – in the example it was an email or phone call. Is that an apparent and present ability? No.

The battery of course need not occur, but the apprehension must be reasonable…this doesn’t meet the standards. If I send an email to you saying that I’m going to kick the shit out of you, then any threat, although there may be an apparent ability to harm you eventually, it’s not present.

@Seaofclouds – that is not the situation, again. As I mentioned, your situation is one where the police could get involved. The domestic situation is one where there may be an emergency need to protect members of the home. You state “threats.” That sounds like several. The person knows where you live. These are facts which lend credence to the threat, and show that it may very well be carried out.

None of this is a single statement, made over the telephone. Nor are any of them a tweet. Tweets are impersonal and public.

@iamthemob It was one threat (didn’t realize I put an ‘s’ on it and it’s too late to edit it now) and I called the police right away because I wasn’t waiting for any other threats.

Obviously somehow the authorities got involved in the two examples above. All it would take is a phone call from someone stating that they saw a threatening message about blowing up an airport or stoning someone. To me, it is the same. A threat is a threat and should be investigated and taken seriously until it is proven not to be a serious threat. You really have no way of knowing how serious something said in any means (whether through a face to face conversation/email/tweet/or whatever else) really is until it is investigated. It really doesn’t matter if it is said publicly or privately (except for the fact that public tweets are easier to prove than a phone conversation).

@Seaofclouds – We’re not talking about investigation, though. We’re talking about whether it’s illegal to make a threat. That’s the difference. There is the difference between a credible threat, and a threat that is not credible.

If it is a crime to make threats, any threats, then all that is needed is the threat and the person has committed a crime. From that point, the person would be arrested and charged. If an investigation occurs, that is difference. If the threat is severe, and in the domestic context, it is likely that the police will take it seriously.

As I said, again, and again, the investigation is appropriate in the bomb context with the tweet – because the threat is made in an area where speech is limited (in the U.S., this has been established legally). The threat in the politicians case was not stating that the official would do it. However, if something resulted from it, might the person be held responsible? That’s a different issue.

This is the difference. in all cases, it must be legally shown that the threat was reasonably perceived to be likely carried out against the person. It has to be pretty clear, or pretty likely. In the case of terroristic threatening, the harm was imminent in relation to you as the personal relationship showed that the threat was extreme and capable of being carried out.

We’re not talking about “threats.” We’re talking about particular types of threats – these are threats +. I have not seen any case where a person has been arrested and convicted of making a threat against another person, casually, that did not include additional and significant other types of factors.

Again, the example was a phone call or email. No relationship stated between the parties. We can add facts and arrests become more reasonable. We can add facts and conviction becomes more reasonable.

I’m sorry @iamthemob, but I’ve never watched minority report (it is a film, right?)

@meiosis – It is – but more universally you can look at 1984 as an example. Censorship of speech inevitably leads to censorship of thought. It also leads to insidious messages becoming more subtle. If you can’t say something violent, even if you feel it, you’ll find a way to make it reasonable.

Consider the statement – we know that all Muslims are not terrorists, but we have to determine why all the terrorists today are Muslims.

This sounds reasonable, but it’s patently false. I actually accepted it as true, and then looked into it after the stark realization that I might be drinking the Kool-Aid. If the statement had been an obvious message of hate, I could have dismissed it.

Those who want to believe hateful statements will believe them when hateful or reasonable, if they support their hate. Those who might be reasonable may be fooled by hate disguised in reason. That’s the danger in not allowing speech – bad ideas have an insidious way of sticking around because they are expressed well.

It’s not hateful speech that’s at issue – I support anyone’s right to call me anything under the sun, but threatening violence, or inciting others to commit violence, is crossing the line.

I think your fears over this are overlown – we have a vibrant democracy here, with a full range of opinions heard and debated, and none of this is threatened by making threatening or inciting violence illegal. Indeed, given that violence actively stifles democracy, I think our system is healthier for it.

@meiosis – The problem with speech regulation is still that the standards are subjectively defined. It’s taken 200 years or so of jurisprudence for the U.S. to get at a semi-clear definition of what qualifies as incitement, and it’s a much more limited standard here than it is in many places in Europe. The broader it is, the harder it is to define – in the way that it is more likely that people will be charged with it inappropriately, and it can become a discretionary tool the government can yield inappropriately.

I’m not reasonably afraid, at this point, that European policies will result in full-on thought policing – but I prefer the U.S. free speech standards to those of the U.S. I consider it much like a safety release valve or being open in a relationship. If you hold things in or don’t express them for fear of being punished, they build up. You can’t find out why you’re wrong. I simply prefer that the judgment of ideas be left in the hands of the people instead of the government.

There are other ways to regulate expressions of violence as an act than by regulating it through speech.

Europe has vibrant democratic institutions where there is more liberty than the U.S. in many areas – most, I would argue. Free speech isn’t one of them, and I think that this is a result of the founding fathers focus on the marketplace of ideas and critique of the government by the people as central to their idea of democracy.