Tyler the Creator and online harassment

[Miss]

Was this rapper's crime making feminists angry? And people think he should be barred from a country and imprisoned for this? I don't get it, but I suspect there's a reason for my not getting this...

[Biglose]

So on the one hand, prosecuting people for making threats is too impractical so let's not do it. But on the other hand, prosecuting people for making threats online is so easy that the police will wind up arresting just about anyone for anything, so let's not do it?

 

I don't know. I don't find these compelling arguments for not turning the other cheek to crime.

 

Most people who are opposed to the prosecution of nonviolent drug offenders in the US aren't really motivated by how it's wasting precious police and prison dollars, but because they (rightfully) see that drug abuse is more of a health issue than a legal one and that putting drug addicts in jail or prison will not help them, in fact it will only make everything worse.

 

But that's not the case with people who make rape and death threats online. It's not a mental health issue at all. And whereas most of us have experimented now and then with drugs, and maybe some of us are still experimenting like every day, ha ha.... I argue that most of us - in fact, the VAST majority of us - have not ever threatened a person over the internet with murder or rape or other forms of assault. Because the vast majority of us are not twisted fucking criminals who could stand to see some consequences to their actions.

 

So I would not mind using resources to prosecute people who threaten violent crime, the same way I mind using resources to prosecute nonviolent drug users.

 

And this is not, again, "people I don't like," nor is it "internet nastiness" or "typically being assholes on the web" or for that matter "boys will be boys." It's criminal behavior that warrants investigation and prosecution.

The only thing you would do is give the police an instrument to persecute people they do not like. The technical problems would stay in place.

So you can go after the kid who made a sarcastical comment, because he did not think anyone in their clear mind could take it for a threat. But you won't go after the guy who spoofed his IP because you do not fucking have his IP. Of course one could make programs like that illegal. Which again would have major impacts on journalists and wistleblowers.

 

But what angers me a bit about comments like that is that I know for a fact, that the second the threats are made by people you like or with which you have some common ground, you will be on the other side.

So you are not even serious about. You do not really believe in it. Because I think deep down you know what kind of freakingly stupid idea it would be. But who could be in favor of death threats...

 

It is the same with shit like it was with the war on drugs. Yeah, I feel sad about those people taking drugs, I feel sad about the people beeing the victims of drug related offences, lets do something about it.

A few years later: Ooops who would have thought that would happen. (You mean outside of everybody who thought a minute about what you were doing?)

Drugs were used to drive people in a dependency and they were used to drive women into prostitution while having control over them. And I guess that beats online harassment. But still it did not work. Wonder why....

 

Instead you have the SCOTUS ruling that some guy publicly posting on Facebook about killing his ex and the FBI/PD officer who talked to him about it is protected speech (the ex even had a fucking restraining order) so I don't expect anything to happen and it will get worse.

The point is, what you gonne do? You would need to rewrite the constitution. And to again balance the restriction of freedom of speech you would need to build in other forms of protection. German law would be different in that instance, but we have a huge amount of other restriction on the state. I am not saying that his would be a bad thing. Far from it. I just say realistically thinking to get to any restriction of the freedom of speech which would not have the most likely outcome of fucking over the wrong people in the end, well it is quite unlikely.

[Miss]

I think if people are not allowed to talk, then their society is oppressive. Who agrees?

[all swedes are racist]

I think if people are not allowed to talk, then their society is oppressive. Who agrees?

You mean, like people who speak out against misogynist homophobes who incite followers to engage in gross social media campaigns of rape and death threats?

[Kat]

I think if people are not allowed to talk, then their society is oppressive. Who agrees?

 

I had a student who threatened to stab me in the hand with a pencil when I asked him to stop talking during a test, and then who threatened to "pop" me when I marked him tardy after he came 20 minutes late to class. I suspended him from my class for this until I could have a conference with the principal and his father. If that makes me an oppressor, then so be it. :dunno:

[Biglose]

 

I had a student who threatened to stab me in the hand with a pencil when I asked him to stop talking during a test, and then who threatened to "pop" me when I marked him tardy after he came 20 minutes late to class. I suspended him from my class for this until I could have a conference with the principal and his father. If that makes me an oppressor, then so be it. :dunno:

If you are a teacher and not an oppressor, you are doing something wrong....

[karaddin]

Biglose - given it got to SCOTUS it's clearly possible to do something about it within the constitution if the judges were inclined to view it that way. The restriction on free speech when making threats already exists, it's not a new law and it's not unconstitutional, it's just whether you see the internet as real or some magical fairy land where nothing is real.

Unsurprisingly a bunch of old people don't realise how necessary the internet is to many careers these days and that simply staying off it isn't an option.

The asshole in that case was claiming art protections, saying it was rap he was posting, so you've got a blanket exception from laws now for art just like the religious freedom laws, that can only end well.

[Kat]

One thing that isn't reducing the amount of death and rape threats (which just happen to be aimed disproportionately at silencing women) is the current approach of throwing our hands up in the air and saying it's too hard.

 

Indeed. I wonder why we don't call some of these actions terrorism.

[Kindly Old Man]

 

Indeed. I wonder why we don't call some of these actions terrorism.

 

Online it's harder to tell if the person is Muslim.

[Biglose]

Biglose - given it got to SCOTUS it's clearly possible to do something about it within the constitution if the judges were inclined to view it that way. The restriction on free speech when making threats already exists, it's not a new law and it's not unconstitutional, it's just whether you see the internet as real or some magical fairy land where nothing is real.

Unsurprisingly a bunch of old people don't realise how necessary the internet is to many careers these days and that simply staying off it isn't an option.

The asshole in that case was claiming art protections, saying it was rap he was posting, so you've got a blanket exception from laws now for art just like the religious freedom laws, that can only end well.

The point is, that the second you say art is not protected, guess how many rappers would go to jail for threatening the police...

I am not saying it ain't possible to do it, germany has laws like that but they work over protection of privacy. So simply taking a picture of somebody without consent and posting it with the address can already get you in trouble, if you engage in some sort of  agitation or shaming.

 

But the case of this threat would need the law to go even further. To say you are not allowed to say that a person has filed a petition to have you banned from the country. Honestly?

How could you be a reporter in a country with such laws? You report something the police does not like, they can arrest you legally. If they had a private argument about his music, and he would then go out to "shame" her on his facebook. Yeah, I can see how this might be something, but I do not think even this would fly.

[Howdyphillip]

Was this rapper's crime making feminists angry? And people think he should be barred from a country and imprisoned for this? I don't get it, but I suspect there's a reason for my not getting this...

I do not know why I am even responding to this, because your obstinate refusal to see the difference between displeasing people with words and inciting others to attack an individual tells me you are firmly on the side of anti feminism and will argue nonsense just to further your cause.

 

Let me try and break it down as simply as I can. Freedom of speech is protected in the US. What is not protected in this is the freedom to attack and threaten others even if it is only implied. 

 

 

 

The point is, what you gonne do? You would need to rewrite the constitution. And to again balance the restriction of freedom of speech you would need to build in other forms of protection. German law would be different in that instance, but we have a huge amount of other restriction on the state. I am not saying that his would be a bad thing. Far from it. I just say realistically thinking to get to any restriction of the freedom of speech which would not have the most likely outcome of fucking over the wrong people in the end, well it is quite unlikely.

 

Since you are a constitutional scholar, can you please point out where your right to threaten to rape and kill people are written in the constitution? I missed that part. 

I think if people are not allowed to talk, then their society is oppressive. Who agrees?

Let me now express my right to free speech. There is one or two things happening here, The first is you are just not smart enough to understand that the intent of Tyler the Creator's tweet against Coralie Alison was to incite threats. Either that, or you are a willful participant, or at least condone the behavior. 

[karaddin]

The point is, that the second you say art is not protected, guess how many rappers would go to jail for threatening the police...

I am not saying it ain't possible to do it, germany has laws like that but they work over protection of privacy. So simply taking a picture of somebody without consent and posting it with the address can already get you in trouble, if you engage in some sort of  agitation or shaming.

 

But the case of this threat would need the law to go even further. To say you are not allowed to say that a person has filed a petition to have you banned from the country. Honestly?

How could you be a reporter in a country with such laws? You report something the police does not like, they can arrest you legally. If they had a private argument about his music, and he would then go out to "shame" her on his facebook. Yeah, I can see how this might be something, but I do not think even this would fly.

But the discussion wasn't staying solely on Tyler's actions, it had moved on to prosecuting the people actually making the threats, and that's what my post was about which you were responding to.  You absolutely can and should prosecute that, and SCOTUS holding that it's not sufficient for a reasonable person to feel threatened by a threat, but that you have to prove the person had intent to put the person in fear of their life is fucking ridiculous (I had forgotten the grounds, they punted and avoided the art issue entirely, that was the assholes defense but it was irrelevant).  The intent of a person making a threat is irrelevant to it's impact as violence against the person threatened, the reasonable person test should absolutely be sufficient.

 

As to Tyler it is much more difficult to say there, personally I think you can draw a distinction based on the number of followers a person has.  If the person who posted the details of the Dentist had 2.5 million followers as well then it looks a lot worse to me than if they were someone with 100 followers and it just got picked up and retweeted a lot.  Someone with 2.5 million followers knows what they are doing when they implicitly call for a dogpile, and even if it's not asking for rape and death threats (which I'm not prepared to accept in this case) they are certainly asking for harassment.  So yeah, I'm happy to say people with a certain profile are restricted in their ability to call out an individual, particularly someone without a prominent presence themselves.  I suspect it would be a lot harder to prove he intended the death and rape threats specifically, and *that* would probably require proving intent.

 

But you stop people making death threats and you reduce the level of harassment a person receives, so fucking eviscerate the fuckers making those threats and change the behaviour.

[Castel]

 

Let me now express my right to free speech. There is one or two things happening here, The first is you are just not smart enough to understand that the intent of Tyler the Creator's tweet against Coralie Alison was to incite threats. Either that, or you are a willful participant, or at least condone the behavior. 

 

 

 

I mean, you can state that, sure. 

 

I still find it hard to believe that this will ever be generalizable or actionable. 

[Biglose]

Let me try and break it down as simply as I can. Freedom of speech is protected in the US. What is not protected in this is the freedom to attack and threaten others even if it is only implied. 

 

If you talk about the case karaddin brought up, you can read it on the home page of the supreme court, I guess. But that was not my saying that was something karaddin pointed out the supreme court said.

 

The question of this threat was if saying that somebody is trying to ban you from a country is something you can write on your facebook page. And honestly, I can't even see how one could think this would not fall under the definition of free speech in the US. Thats just silly and a severe case of "I want people who do not agree with me thrown into jail".

[karaddin]

If you talk about the case karaddin brought up, you can read it on the home page of the supreme court, I guess. But that was not my saying that was something karaddin pointed out the supreme court said.

 

The question of this threat was if saying that somebody is trying to ban you from a country is something you can write on your facebook page. And honestly, I can't even see how one could think this would not fall under the definition of free speech in the US. Thats just silly and a severe case of "I want people who do not agree with me thrown into jail".

Once again, the discussion here had turned into prosecuting rape and death threats generally, not just the case of calling people out with a large follower base to harass them without doing anything yourself.

 

On the art argument, I don't think even artists should be protected from threatening specific people in their art.  Yes this means I'm OK with censoring some of Eminems songs, because that shit is not OK - selling a song about raping a specific person to millions of fans? Really fucking not OK.  Threatening a group but not an individual? That's the line for me, and I say that should be protected still, it's when it becomes targeted at a single identifiable individual.  On this test you would be OK with threatening 'The Police', but not 'Darren Wilson' for example (since he springs to mind as a (former) Police Officer who many of the left bear some animosity.

[Howdyphillip]

 

 

 

I mean, you can state that, sure. 

 

I still find it hard to believe that this will ever be generalizable or actionable. 

Is this because there is a reasonable argument that what this man tweeted about this woman was intended for his 2.4 million followers to send her puppies? 

 

When taken in context between the past behavior from him, there is no question what his intent was.

[Castel]

But the discussion wasn't staying solely on Tyler's actions, it had moved on to prosecuting the people actually making the threats, and that's what my post was about which you were responding to.  You absolut ely can and should prosecute that, and SCOTUS holding that it's not sufficient for a reasonable person to feel threatened by a threat, but that you have to prove the person had intent to put the person in fear of their life is fucking ridiculous (I had forgotten the grounds, they punted and avoided the art issue entirely, that was the assholes defense but it was irrelevant).  The intent of a person making a threat is irrelevant to it's impact as violence against the person threatened, the reasonable person test should absolutely be sufficient.

 

As to Tyler it is much more difficult to say there, personally I think you can draw a distinction based on the number of followers a person has.  If the person who posted the details of the Dentist had 2.5 million followers as well then it looks a lot worse to me than if they were someone with 100 followers and it just got picked up and retweeted a lot.  Someone with 2.5 million followers knows what they are doing when they implicitly call for a dogpile, and even if it's not asking for rape and death threats (which I'm not prepared to accept in this case) they are certainly asking for harassment.  So yeah, I'm happy to say people with a certain profile are restricted in their ability to call out an individual, particularly someone without a prominent presence themselves.  I suspect it would be a lot harder to prove he intended the death and rape threats specifically, and *that* would probably require proving intent.

 

But you stop people making death threats and you reduce the level of harassment a person receives, so fucking eviscerate the fuckers making those threats and change the behaviour.

I assumed that we'd trend towards some situation where the morality was inversely proportional to the power of the person. Of course, it wouldn't be just followers but the person or situation being targeted by the comments, and how violent or heated the whole thing was beforehand.

 

 

Easy to see how someone like Jimmy Kimmel "targeting" someone (for something they were trying to do) would then fall under this umbrella. 

 

Is this because there is a reasonable argument that what this man tweeted about this woman was intended for his 2.4 million followers to send her puppies? 

 

When taken in context between the past behavior from him, there is no question what his intent was.

 

 

 

No, I imagine the argument would be that he was directly criticizing her, which is not in any way new to anyone on the internet. Calling out and exposing people online is nothing new. Hell, it's likely that the groups that would keep Tyler out of the country might have tweeted themselves. 

 

I think everyone is having an easy time of it because it's Tyler and I'm really curious how far we'd take this. 

[Howdyphillip]

 

I assumed that we'd trend towards some situation where the morality was inversely proportional to the power of the person. Of course, it wouldn't be just followers but the person or situation being targeted by the comments, and how violent or heated the whole thing was beforehand.

 

 

Easy to see how someone like Jimmy Kimmel "targeting" someone (for something they were trying to do) would then fall under this umbrella. 

 

 

No, I imagine the argument would be that he was directly criticizing her, which is not in any way new to anyone on the internet. Calling out and exposing people online is nothing new. Hell, it's likely that the groups that would keep Tyler out of the country might have tweeted themselves. 

 

I think everyone is having an easy time of it because it's Tyler and I'm really curious how far we'd take this. 

 

This argument holds water until you examine the past history between the two people which has already consisted of threats. 

 

Let's look at it this way, If Jimmy Kimmel had been known to have made threatening comments about a person during one of his monologues, and then publicly released information about that person, I think he very easily could be found liable as he would have established his intent.

[Biglose]

Once again, the discussion here had turned into prosecuting rape and death threats generally, not just the case of calling people out with a large follower base to harass them without doing anything yourself.

 

On the art argument, I don't think even artists should be protected from threatening specific people in their art.  Yes this means I'm OK with censoring some of Eminems songs, because that shit is not OK - selling a song about raping a specific person to millions of fans? Really fucking not OK.  Threatening a group but not an individual? That's the line for me, and I say that should be protected still, it's when it becomes targeted at a single identifiable individual.  On this test you would be OK with threatening 'The Police', but not 'Darren Wilson' for example (since he springs to mind as a (former) Police Officer who many of the left bear some animosity.

Sorry, but I just awnsered to the person who started the threat, an I do not think there was a change in position since the beginning as far as the threatstarter is concerned (I did not read any). 

(And I guess this post confirms it:

 

Is this because there is a reasonable argument that what this man tweeted about this woman was intended for his 2.4 million followers to send her puppies? 

 

When taken in context between the past behavior from him, there is no question what his intent was.

)

 

So please do not go after me, for just responding to somebody else. Obviously I did not do it in bad faith or to build a strawman.

 

 

For the second part, I agree with you. The problem is, the US constitution does not. And one has to be aware, that changing it is not easy.

(And honestly. Just because something goes up to the supreme court does not mean that it was not clear to begin with. Hint: Obamacare)

 

But again: I would not even flinch if Jimmy Kimmel goes to jail and Tyler the Creator does not, because he did not target her strong enough. I would still support it.

The point is, that political activist would bare the frontal assault of stronger privacy laws, because they would protect the "racist" equally.

But if you get through that, I think you are correct that online harresment would fall on the long run. Simply because starting a shitstorm against a private person would be quite resonably get you in trouble. And without the initiators, no shitstorm. Sure there would probably be exception for people of public interest. A shit storm against the president is something totally different than a shit storm against a girl making a selfi next to a sign. But in the end I think that laws would not even be needed. It would just need enough people condeming it, no matter what it is about and who does it. It has become socially acceptable. And once public shaming/harassment by a mob is socially acceptable, it is hard to put limits to it.

[Jo498]

I think the point here is that insults and threats on twitter (or the internet in general) are so "cheap" (and distant and often anyonymous) that it is hard to take them seriously. Often it seems just stupid people blowing off steam.