Twitter free speech / trolling poll

[philmophlegm]

[Poll #1857582]

Comments

[bart-calendar.livejournal.com]

When John Lydon said "Two to go!" after George Harrison died, I have to admit I laughed.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

It seems a spectacularly bad idea under most circumstances. Even in situations where both parties consented and it was obviously just a bad taste joke between friends, it would still likely be a pretty poor plan because of the very public nature of the medium.

Edit: And, hmmm, I guess that most people would probably find it socially acceptable to e.g. wish ill on e.g. a murderer, a terrorist, a dictator etc. It isn't something I would do personally, but I have observed that other people do so (even if they would otherwise be horrified at wishing ill on people)

[bunn.livejournal.com]

I think Q1 (serious threats) should be grounds for investigation, but I think it would be almost impossible to separate it definitively and legally from Q2 (humorous threats) and you are never going to get people to stop making those, nasty and unfunny though they are.

I don't think it's acceptable to rejoice at anyone's death, no matter how nasty.

Rejoice, by all means, at the election result, deposing of a tyrant, arrest of a criminal, sacking of a terrible boss. But death is not political, it is personal and human, and how often are people only stopped from doing bad things by death? Very rarely, I think : bad rulers, legislators and managers have usually become just vulnerable weak people, long before they die. I feel very strongly about this!

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

Surely the question should be whether a reasonable person would feel threatened by the message, supposedly humorous or not? I mean, there's not much difference between

"I know where you live & I'm going to kill you & rape your kids"

and

"I know where you live & I'm going to kill you & rape your kids LOL",

but a world of difference from

"If Girls Aloud don't play Biology I'm gonna nuke the site from orbit!"

As for saying you would celebrate if some celebrity died, I would say the threshold for "appalling behaviour would be reached if you included their @twittername so that they saw it in their feed.

[steer.livejournal.com]

I suspect more than half the people of my generation have said something about Mrs Thatcher's grave having a fitted dancefloor. If we added stuff like "I could kill the guy who wrote that stupid song" I think the number of people who have said that they would/could kill someone will rise to near 100%.

I think here we're in the field where normal social behaviour completely includes such statements, where it would not even be considered slightly shocking as part of a comedy act... but where the lack of social cues on twitter could lead it to be interpreted seriously.

If we have to have a police investigation into every death threat on twitter we're going to hire a lot more policemen. You'd have to be pretty daft to take these things seriously.

That said there would be a level of sustained threats/abuse where it would stray into a territory I would say should be illegal.

[eledonecirrhosa.livejournal.com]

How do you tell a death threat from the common or garden phrase "I'll bloody kill [insert name of person who has annoyed you here]"?

"Kill" has been for aeons a synonym for "will express my extreme irritation at". Exactly the same way that "starving" is a synonym for "quite hungry and would like to eat something soon".

No-one rushes food aid convoys to places where people have said to/texted/tweeted their mates "I'm starving". Why should we rush the police to them when they say "I'll kill..."?

As to the celebrating celebrity/politicians' deaths - again it is hyperbole. Of the many thousands of people who said they'll celebrate Mrs Thatcher/Paris Hilton/Mr Blobby's death... most won't. They'll hear it on the news many years after they said it and think "Meh, whatever." No street parties, fireworks displays, etc.

The English language contains exaggeration for the sake of effect. Legislation will not alter this.

[andrewducker]

I originally said "Yes" to the first one, but then changed it to "No", and then back to "Yes".

Because I don't think that it should be taken as a death threat - it's a public statement, being made from long distance. So I don't think of it as an actual death threat. I _do_ think of it as generally abusive behaviour though. And while I'm in favour of free speech, my limits are when it comes to deliberately setting out to make someone feel threatened.

When it comes to making jokes on Twitter about celebrities dying, I see there being a world of difference between "I'm going to laugh when Sting dies, the pompous arse" and "I'm going to laugh when @Sting dies, the pompous arse". The first will be seen by you and your followers/friends. The second is one where you've deliberately included the person you're joking about, and have thus turned a semi-public/semi-private conversation into an attack on someone. Thus, appalling behaviour.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I think legality or otherwise of statements should be exactly the same on Twitter as off Twitter. This needs a little bit of thought because of the point others make about whether the subject of the threat is directly included in the tweet, which isn't completely straightforward. But I would want lawmaking to be done in accordance with this principle.