Do You See These Words As Threatening?

[jaF0]

This isn't play, it's a real legal case and I'm curious how you as citizens of the web would see similar if it was directed at you or someone you know.


"
WASHINGTON (CN) — The Supreme Court limited the definition of true threats on Tuesday, siding with a Colorado man who stalked a local musician for years.
Billy Counterman asked the high court to overturn the four-year prison sentence he received for stalking a local Colorado singer-songwriter — identified as C.W. in court filings — on claims that he did not mean the threats he sent her.

Counterman repeatedly messaged C.W. for years despite her never responding to his messages. He became hostile when C.W. refused to interact with him and threatened her saying, “Staying in cyber life is going to kill you.” Counterman also said C.W. should “fuck off permanently” and “die.”

C.W. was terrified by Counterman’s messages and began to withdraw from public appearances and cancel shows for fear for her life.

Colorado charged Counterman with stalking causing serious emotional distress. The charges fell under an exception to the First Amendment that disqualifies threatening speech known as true threats. "

https://www.courthousenews.com/musicians-stalker-may-duck-conviction-after-high-court-win/


I see a lot of similar words here on Lit and on other websites. Those words might not even get deleted by a Moderator on some sites, while they would on others. To me, a threat is 'I'm going to do this to do and I know where you live ....' or something similar.

I think the guy is probably an idiot and what many would consider a 'troll', but I'm not even sure why police contacted him at all initially, let alone arrested him and sent the case to court.

Granted, there may be more to the case that what's in that article, but that's all I have to go by.

 

[Fingerfuxs]

My guess would be tone ‘ , there had to be a pile of *tone = actual intention verbiage that showed a pattern.

imo , Tone is everything, if it’s consistent with blinders on , it’s anger blinding to actual truths. Bad temper , temper tantrums , blind eye to logical thinking , without at the very least the door open to compromise.

They are on a legal ledge imo , the case had the merit to make it a to that level of scrutiny for a reason.

 

[Sinstories]

This is one of the toughest things we have to deal with as a result of the internet. In the pre-interwebs days, he would have either sat in his basement and jerked off to her publicity pics or physically made contact and if he was overly persistent, her friends, brother, father, etc would have taken him out back and beat his ass. Problem solved pretty much all the time.

Now, he has the power to keep his safe space where he can be the troll / degen without risking his personal safety. In the end, assuming the accuracy of what's posted is all there was, he never threatened her, he parsed his words carefully. There is no overt threat of him doing physical harm to her. He wishes bad things happen to her, but never states he is going to do it. Unfortunately for her, it's impossible to play semantics with fear.

We always hear about the woman (usually a woman) who was cyber stalked and was afraid, but the police didn't, usually couldn't, do anything about it, then she gets killed. What we don't know is how many times it is just some loser with a keyboard who gets off of messing with people because his mommy didn't hug him as a child or whatever, but in reality is such a pussy he would faint if he ever got within 100 ft of her. Probably 1,000 or more to 1 ratio, but tell that to the family of the 1.

Unfortunately, our legal system has a things called beyond a reasonable doubt, and if you read the OP without bias, there is much more than reasonable doubt that he was actually threatening her.

We are at a point where the careful troll can abuse someone with little fear. As a matter of fact, with that ruling, he will likely sue her and the police for harassment. People complain about the barbaric good old days when kids used to fight on the playground with fists and their parents shook their heads and said boys will be boys, or older brothers would snatch some boy up and woop his ass for treating his sister badly (yep, did that a couple times). But, the majority of boys learned lessons in consequences and grew up to be decent people.

 

[jaF0]

Nobody else?

 

[Fingerfuxs]

saying, “Staying in cyber life is going to kill you.”

It’s possible that this frame of mind Is the gateway to a newer version of mental illness. For and against , it’s a statement since I’ve isolated it from the original “quote “ .

That’s what online personas do , action , reaction. *First post , setting it aside , that’s case law now , and in effect as the cyber world chugs along. !

everything else is a moot point , in regards to that example !

As a conversation starter , it has merit , unless the participants are wearing blinders and just putting icing on a cake , to make a statement.