When is an online threat illegal and when is it free speech?

WASHINGTON - Anthony Elonis claimed he was just kidding when he posted a series of graphically violent rap lyrics on Facebook about killing his estranged wife, shooting up a kindergarten class and attacking an FBI agent.

But his wife didn't see it that way. Neither did a federal jury.

Elonis, who's from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, was convicted of violating a federal law that makes it a crime to threaten another person.

In a far-reaching case that probes the limits of free speech over the Internet, the Supreme Court on Monday was to consider whether Elonis' Facebook posts, and others like it, deserve protection under the First Amendment.

Elonis argues that his lyrics were simply a crude and spontaneous form of expression that should not be considered threatening if he did not really mean it. The government says it does not matter what Elonis intended, and that the true test of a threat is whether his words make a reasonable person feel threatened.

One post about his wife said, "There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts."

The case has drawn widespread attention from free-speech advocates who say comments on Facebook, Twitter and other social media can be hasty, impulsive and easily misinterpreted. They point out that a message on Facebook intended for a small group could be taken out of context when viewed by a wider audience.

"A statute that proscribes speech without regard to the speaker's intended meaning runs the risk of punishing protected First Amendment expression simply because it is crudely or zealously expressed," said a brief from the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups.

But so far, most lower courts have rejected that view, ruling that a "true threat" depends on how an objective person perceives the message.

For more than four decades, the Supreme Court has said that "true threats" to harm another person are not protected speech under the First Amendment. But the court has been careful to distinguish threats from protected speech such as "political hyperbole" or "unpleasantly sharp attacks."

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When is an online threat illegal and when is it free speech?