Category Archives: Free Speech

As Brutus from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar said, perhaps ironically, There are no tricks in plain and simple faith.

Only a fool would fail to see the decaying political discourse in America and the sharp partisan divides. These divides in America have become so overt and tense that the arts have become outlets to express partisan anger in an ever-increasingly distasteful manner.

Since the inauguration of President Trump, Madonna spoke of blowing up the White House, Snoop Dogg assassinated a clown resembling Trump in a music video, and Kathy Griffin held up a severed head that resembled President Trump in a photograph, all under the auspices of the resistance. Last week, the Republican baseball team was nearly massacred by a man who clearly had targeted them for their political views. The escalation of both rhetoric and violence should be alarming to any rational citizen.

Over the past weekend, supporters of Trump aimed to directly combat Shakespeare in the Park in New York City, in which Julius Caesar, dressed to resemble Trump, is assassinated on stage. Their tactic? Rushing the stage and interrupting the performance while yelling things such as stop leftist violence! and, Goebbels would be proud!

Their actions did not calm and tone down the rhetoric: they only furthered it. Ironically enough, these same people belong to a base that was vocal and united against campus protesters who employed the same tactics to shut down and harass conservative speakers.

Its worth mentioning that the very same production did the same thing to an actor resembling President Obama, and no public outcry took place. The directors of the play used the modern context of the presidency to illustrate the plays point, although continuing to do so in the wake of last weeks violence was distasteful and unnecessary.

Laura Loomer, the woman who first rushed the stage, claimed on Fox News: I am protecting the presidents life. I am protecting our Constitution. I am using my constitutional right of free speech and protest to protest against the bastardization of Shakespeare.

These claims are as ridiculous as they are false. The Secret Service protects the presidents life, not stage-rushing playgoers. Shakespeare in the Park is a free event, albeit one that requires tickets from its attendees. As a closed event, any interruption cannot be described as an exercise of free speech, but instead an act that infringes on the rights of those who are attending the event.

The producers of the play had already come under immense pressure and were already losing sponsors. By rushing the stage, the narrative switched from the disturbing act of the play, to silly protesters shouting down the play itself in the name of free speech.

Perhaps these protesters should have better studied Julius Caesar. The play portrays the assassination of the historic Roman leader, but focuses on the infighting and strife that ensues among the assassins. The plays tragedy is not Caesar himself, but rather the friendships, and eventually the lives, of those who wished to seize power. It is itself a condemnation of political violence.

In the aftermath of what was obviously a publicity stunt, Loomer used her airtime on Fox News to bash the never-Trumpers who she claimed are unhappy with President Trump being our president.

They havent accepted it and the only way that they would be resolved is if he was eradicated or taken out, she said.

I voted for Trump. Supporting our president and supporting free speech are not mutually exclusive. Americans who chose to not vote for Trump have the same rights to free speech as those who voted for him. The get in line or else mentality on display is the very sort of behavior that fuels the hyperpartisan rhetoric originally at fault.

Fight fire with fire is the mantra these demonstrators have used to defend their actions.

This sort of logic (if you can call it that) is only furthering the downward spiral of political discourse. After the many times the right has claimed to be the champions of free speech, this sort of behavior is unbelievably hypocritical.

Discourse in America, on both sides, is seriously flawed. Taking away others free speech is not the solution. You can fight back with outrage and strength while upholding decency and respecting the rights of others.

Kassy Dillon is the founder of Lone Conservative blog and has appeared on Fox News discussing issues surrounding free speech and cultural issues on college campuses. @KassyDillon

Views of contributors are their own and not the views of The Hill.

Continued here:
Backing Trump, Shakespeare and free speech (at the same time) - The Hill (blog)

BBC News

Johnny Depp on Donald Trump: Crime or free speech? BBC News Actor Johnny Depp has caused controversy after he appeared to threaten US President Donald Trump at the Glastonbury Festival. "When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?" he asked the crowd. It is a crime in the US to make threats ... Johnny Depp Apologizes for Joking About Trump Assassination: 'I Intended No Malice'PEOPLE.com Johnny Depp jokes about killing Donald Trump in Glastonbury appearanceThe Guardian Johnny Depp apologizes for assassination jokeCNN all 582 news articles »

More:
Johnny Depp on Donald Trump: Crime or free speech? - BBC News

MADISON, Wis University of Wisconsin students who repeatedly disrupt campus speakers or presentations could be suspended or expelled under a Republican-backed bill the state Assembly debated Wednesday.

The measure, expected to be voted on late Wednesday night, is the latest salvo in the national push among some conservatives to crack down on disruptions they say is quelling free speech on liberal college campuses. Conservatives are worried that right-wing speakers aren't given equal treatment as liberal campus presenters, while other students have complained about free expression fanning hate speech.

Democrats, who didn't have the votes to stop the bill in the Assembly, blasted it as an unconstitutional attack on freedom of speech.

"It basically gags and bags the First Amendment," said Democratic Rep. Chris Taylor of Madison.

Republican backers told reporters that the bill would protect speech from those who repeatedly try to quash it.

"We have to lay down some groundwork here and we have to create a behavioral shift so everyone can be heard and has the right to express their views," said the measure's sponsor Republican Rep. Jesse Kremer.

The bill must still pass the GOP-controlled Senate and be signed by Gov. Scott Walker before becoming law.

Walker has voiced support for it.

"To me, a university should be precisely the spot where you have an open and free dialogue about all different positions," he said in an April interview with WISN-TV. "But the minute you shut down a speaker, no matter whether they are liberal or conservative or somewhere in between, I just think that's wrong."

The proposal comes in the wake of incidents on college campuses across the country in which protests or threats marred conservative presentations.

Fights broke out at New York University in February after protesters disrupted a speech by Gavin McInnes, founder of a group called "Proud Boys" and a self-described chauvinist. That same month there were protests at the University of California-Berkley ahead of an appearance by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos. That school canceled an April speech by conservative firebrand Ann Coulter due to security concerns. And in November, UW-Madison students shouted down former Breitbart editor Ben Shapiro.

Under the Wisconsin bill, two complaints about a UW System student's conduct during a speech or presentation would trigger a hearing. Students found to have twice engaged in violence or disorderly conduct that disrupts another's freedom of expression would be suspended for a semester. A third offense would mean expulsion. UW institutions would have to remain neutral on public controversies and the Board of Regents would have to report annually to legislators about incidents.

"You're hoping to neuter the university from having any stance on things," said Democratic Rep. Cory Mason.

The bill is based on a model proposal the conservative Arizona-based Goldwater Institute put together to address campus free-speech issues. Legislation based on the model has been enacted in Colorado, with others being considered in five states, including Michigan, North Carolina and Virginia, according to the institute.

Democrats argue that the measure could open the door to partisan operatives attending speeches and filing complaints against students to get them thrown out of school.

"We are returning, when we do this, to the witch hunt era of Joe McCarthy," said Democratic Rep. Fred Kessler, referring to the former U.S. senator from Wisconsin who made it his mission in the 1950s to identify Communists.

The only group registered in support of the measure is Americans for Prosperity, a conservative advocacy organization. Opponents include a group representing faculty on the flagship UW-Madison campus, the labor union representing UW employees and the League of Women Voters.

See more here:
Wisconsin Assembly debates bill on campus free speech - Fox News

A spate of terrorist attacks has hit Europe in the past month, not only in Manchester and London but also in Paris and Brussels, where incidents this week were mercifully terminated before they could do any real damage. In Britain, a man seeking vengeance rammed a van into a crowd exiting a mosque, giving rise to real and justified fears of an anti-Muslim backlash. The incidents have left the Continent, and especially Britain, in a state of nervous agitation, fearful of a prolonged period of social unrest and heightened tensions between Muslim communities and their secular neighbors.

On the issue of free speech, the response from authorities has been sad but predictable. Reports the New York Times: In a coordinated campaign across 14 states, the German police on Tuesday raided the homes of 36 people accused of hateful postings over social media, including threats, coercion, and incitement to racism. Most of the raids concerned politically motivated right-wing incitement. In Sussex, in southern England, a man has been charged with publishing written material intending to stir up religious hatred against Muslims on his Facebook account in 2015; he faces a year in prison. The Sussex police say they hope the lengthy sentence will deter those looking to spread messages of fear and hate on the Internet.

There are two things that come to mind in the wake of this suppression. The first is that Americans should never forget the value of free speech. Free speech not its anodyne, Continental form is by and large a uniquely American institution. It simply does not exist in Europe. Those who yearn for an America that looks more like the orderly, regulated, universal-health-care systems of Western Europe should keep this fact in the back of their mind always.

The second thing to say is that the crackdown on free speech is not occurring in absentia. The ongoing suppression interacts with decisions taken or not taken in other domains of policy and public debate. The most important of those decisions is that politicians and the culture more broadly have chosen not to inquire into the specifically Islamic roots of terrorism. To decline to blame Muslims en masse for terrorism is well and good and should continue. But the unwillingness to ask how Islam may provide a wellspring of justification for terrorist actions is harder to rationalize. It comes with a certain set of implications and corollaries.

Because someone still has to be blamed. Humans are incapable of accepting acts of terrorism or just about any human action that causes mass suffering as quasi-random acts governed by processes too byzantine for us to understand. We still feel the need to pin the blame on somebody or something, so that through punishment we may eradicate the chance of another attack.

In this case, the refusal to query the role of Islam in inspiring terrorism a refusal regarding which my argument is agnostic has directed the blame in the opposite direction, toward those people who make it their business to propagate their hatred of Islam and those who follow it. Not only does this blame-shifting fulfill the political need to shore up Britains international image nobody likes a country of racists and display the requisite concern for Muslim communities. It also fulfills the psychological need to force someone anyone to take responsibility for the heinous crimes.

In fact an entire ideology, that of right-wing xenophobia and racism, can be blamed, and its proponents punished. The energies that might have been directed toward Wahhabi extremism flow instead toward the elimination of an ideology expressing similar hatred but boasting considerably less power to incite actual violence. The logic motivating this suppression is precisely the one that authorities neglect to use in the case of Islam: that certain sorts of rhetoric, however anonymous and innocuous, have a radicalizing effect on the environment and can effect physical violence; therefore they must be prohibited.

That strategy is likely only to backfire. Responding to a terrorist attack by jailing entirely innocent men they are nearly all men who express unappealing and unwelcome views does little more than radicalize the opposition and reduce the size of the acceptable center ground. When a government tells its citizens that they may not hold certain views, those views do not fancifully dissipate; rather, they come to be articulated only by their most radical proponents, thereby polarizing the political climate and stifling the expression of more-moderate and constructive opinions. Had the present system of legal enforcement existed in the 1960s, Enoch Powell may well have faced prison time for his infamous rivers of blood speech. But that would not detract from the attraction of his ideas, or from their popularity: It would only ensure that they became the property of characters far more unsavory.

But that it will backfire does not mean it cannot do its damage. The terms in which the authorities conducting widespread suppression of free speech emanating largely from the right are jarring. Our society must not allow a climate of fear, threat, criminal violence, and violence either on the street or on the Internet, says the president of the German Federal Criminal Police Office. That would not sound out of place in an Orwell novel, not only for its totalitarian mindset but also for its absurd juxtaposition with the situation on the ground: Idiots spewing their vile thoughts on Facebook are conflated with Islamic terrorists killing hundreds.

Europe has responded to the rise of terror with the tactics of suppression. That these tactics wont work will become obvious soon enough. But until then, there is plenty of reason to fear.

READ MORE: Normalizing Terror Is Worse than Overreacting to It London Attacks Followed the Same Old Stale Arguments Lessons from Norther Ireland

Noah Daponte-Smith is a student of modern history and politics at Yale University and an editorial intern at National Review.

Read more here:
Europe's Free-Speech Crackdown: Punish Anti-Muslims, Ignore Terrorists - National Review

Photo: SARAH GIFFROW /AFP /Getty Images

Yes, hate speech is still free speech

With the left feverishly attempting to squash unwelcome speech on college campuses, with the president of the United States musing about tightening libel laws, with prominent liberals asserting that so-called hate speech is not protected by the First Amendment, free speech in America at least has one reliable friend the Supreme Court of the United States.

In a firm 8-0 decision, the court slapped down the Patent and Trademark Office for denying a band federal trademark registration for the name The Slants, a derogatory term for Asian-Americans. The case involves a very small corner of federal law but implicates the broader logic of political correctness, which is that speech should be silenced for the greater good if there is a chance that someone, somewhere might be offended by it.

As it happens, The Slants is an Asian-American band that seeks to reclaim and take ownership of anti-Asian stereotypes (it has released albums called The Yellow Album and Slanted Eyes, Slanted Hearts). This didnt matter to the trademark office any more than it presumably would to the dean of students at the average liberal arts college. The Slants appealed the initial rejection to the trademark office, got rebuffed again and then rightly made a federal case of it.

The litigation hinged on a provision of federal trademark law referred to as the disparagement clause. This clause forbids registration for any trademark which may disparage persons, living or dead, institutions, beliefs, or national symbols, or bring them into contempt or disrepute. Taken literally, this provision would forbid the disparagement of the KKK, an institution; or Benito Mussolini, a person who is dead; or Vladimir Putin, a person who is living.

The trademark office interprets the clause with all the wisdom youd expect of a federal bureaucracy. As the trademark offices manual puts it, an examiner determines whether or not the mark would be found disparaging by a substantial composite, although not necessarily a majority, of the referenced group.

So, merely a plurality of the offended will do, and common sense is no defense: The fact that an applicant may be a member of that group or has good intentions underlying its use of a term does not obviate the fact that a substantial composite of the referenced group would find the term objectionable.

This is classic safe-space reasoning the harm that would allegedly befall some portion of a group from encountering an offending trademark should trump the free-speech rights of the likes of The Slants. The court utterly rejected this posture, deeming it inimical to a free society and untenable under the U.S. Constitution.

In a passage that should be pasted into the student handbook of every college and read aloud by progressives who have convinced themselves that hate speech is not free speech, the court held, Speech that demeans on the basis of race, ethnicity, gender, religion, age, disability, or any other similar ground is hateful; but the proudest boast of our free speech jurisprudence is that we protect the freedom to express the thought that we hate.

As the courts concurring opinion noted, basing the trademark prohibition on the presumed reactions of an offended group doesnt help a speech burden based on audience reactions is simply government hostility and intervention in a different guise.

The practices of the Patent and Trademark Office obviously arent the most significant grounds for contention over speech. But the disparagement clause was the wedge that activists were trying to use to force the Washington Redskins to change the NFL teams name (the team has been fighting the cancellation of its trademark in court). And every effort by the speech police to spread their operations from college campuses to the wider society must be resisted.

In this case, they came for a self-described Chinatown Dance Rock band with a cheeky name, and the Supreme Court said, Sorry, not in America.

comments.lowry@nationalreview.com

View post:
Yes, hate speech is still free speech - mySanAntonio.com

Statue of "Lady Justice"outside Bangladesh's Supreme Court building.

During a recent visit to Bangladesh to revisit my years there as a student, a colleague suggested I meet Sultana Kamal, much admired for decades of work on justice as a human rights defender.

But Kamal was not making many public appearances, because of threats from militants.

The story that emerged is a tale of authorities who, while attempting to appease some hardline religious groups, ended up compromising basic human rights principles.

In May, prime minister Sheikh Hasinas government, which has long claimed a commitment to secularism, caved to the extremist group Hefazat-e Islamis demands to remove a statue representing Lady Justice in front of the Supreme Court in Dhaka because it was deemed to be an un-Islamic religious object.

On May 28, Kamal argued during a television debate that by this logic no mosques should be permitted on the court premises. That prompted the Hefazat spokesman to call for Kamals arrest, and threaten that if she came out on the streets they would break every bone in her body. Kamal has said that after the threat was made, abusive postings appeared on Facebook, including doctored images of her being lynched.

While Kamal has since received police protection, the government has yet to publicly condemn the threats. On June 18, a lawyer served legal notice seeking her arrest for hurting religious sentiments of the Muslim majority in the country; however, Kamal has not been arrested.

These threats and claims of hurt sentiments are not new. They follow several lethal attacks by extremist groups on bloggers and activists for promoting secularism. Rather than condemn the attacks and arrest those responsible, officials responded by warning that hurting religious sentiments is a crime.

All this is happening against a background of increasing attacks on free speech by the state. Over the past two years, the government has cracked down on media and civil society.

The authorities restored Lady Justice to another part of the Supreme Court complex. But Bangladesh is on a dangerous course. The government needs to do much more to protect rights activists like Kamal and promote an environment where they can carry out their work free from threats and attacks. Appeasing religious extremists and silencing dissent will only lead to more violence.

Go here to read the rest:
Free Speech Under Fire in Bangladesh - Human Rights Watch

The tensions between them exploded in December after Mr. Paladino made offensive remarks about the Obamas in a local weekly newspaper. The newspaper, Artvoice, sent a survey to members of the Buffalo community asking about their hopes for 2017. Mr. Paladino said he hoped Mr. Obama would die of mad cow disease and that Mrs. Obama would return to being a male and let loose in the outback of Zimbabwe where she lives comfortably in a cave with Maxie, the gorilla.

Mr. Paladino apologized. He also said he meant to send the remarks to friends, not the newspaper, but he hit reply instead of forward. About a week after his comments were published, the Buffalo school board demanded his resignation, which he declined to provide.

Not long after, the board filed a petition with the Education Department to have Mr. Paladino removed from his position, saying he had twice disclosed confidential information. In one instance, they said that he shared information with reporters about a legal dispute the board was having with a contractor, which had been discussed with the boards lawyer in executive session, meaning it was closed to the public. Then in January, Mr. Paladino published an article in Artvoice about contract negotiations with the teachers union, which occurred in the fall.

Mr. Paladinos lawyers disputed that his disclosures were improper, arguing that the closed-door meetings had not been convened correctly. But the thrust of their argument was that the board wanted him removed after his comments about the Obamas, and when it learned he could not be removed for what he had said, it looked for another reason. Such an effort violates his right to free speech, the lawyers said. Last week, Mr. Paladino sued members of the board who are trying to remove him, seeking damages.

Frank W. Miller, a lawyer representing school board members, has conceded that Mr. Paladinos statements were protected speech but said that the board was not trying to remove him for those statements. He said Mr. Paladinos disclosures were an unmistakable rejection of his oath of office that made it difficult for the board to have open, fair, and candid discussion. In her testimony Thursday, Dr. Nevergold agreed.

It was quite disturbing to have a board member to go out and reveal executive session information knowing we were in the process of negotiating a contract, she said. It really disrupts the ability of the board to function appropriately.

This was the first day of testimony in a hearing that is expected to stretch into early next week. MaryEllen Elia, the states commissioner of education, is presiding over the hearing and will decide whether Mr. Paladino may remain on the board.

Luis Ferr-Sadurn reported from Albany, and Elizabeth A. Harris from New York

A version of this article appears in print on June 23, 2017, on Page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: Free Speech Is Defense For Paladino At Hearing.

See the original post here:
With Paladino's Job at Stake, Right to Free Speech Is His Defense - New York Times

STEVENS POINT, Wis. (WSAW) -- While many disruptive protest have been making headlines on campuses nationwide, many students at University of Wisconsin- Stevens Point said it's a different story.

"I haven't seen it here on our campus here specifically," UWSP student Rachel Kleine said.

Nonetheless, the university is just one of several UW campuses that will be subject to the UW Free Speech bill recently passed by the Wisconsin Assembly, if it becomes law.

UWSP Provost and Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs Greg Summers said open discussion and debate is a crucial part of a college experience.

"That you could come on a college campus and say things that may be unpopular and debate and discuss, and disagree with one another, that's exactly what universities are about," Summers explained.

But he is not sold that the UW free speech bill is the solution to maintaining those ideals. He believes the legislation has good intentions but is wary of what may be unintended consequences as well, and may instead curb free speech for people who want to protest.

"We don't want anyone to feel intimidated when they express their views on campus, and I'm a little concerned this law may have some unintended consequences along those lines," Summers said.

Rather than suspend or expel, he believes balance may be the key.

"I think the articulation of that set of consequences in the form of a law is perhaps a bit heavy handed," Summers explained.

"Finding a good balance of what protests are allowed at campuses and at least allowing whatever they're protesting to still continue I think is important," Kleine added.

The common PR director for the UWSP Student Government Associations said the organization is monitoring and paying close attention to the bill, and gathering feedback from other students.

The bill heads to the Senate next. Governor Scott Walker has spoken positively of the idea.

More:
UWSP: Free speech bill: "Balance is key" - WSAW

The City of Minneapolis has established a hot line to report speech and conduct that are deemed hateful. The citys press release says:

Through its 311 service, the City of Minneapolis has opened a new hotline for reporting hate crimes, which are harassing behaviors motivated by prejudice.

That is wrong. Harassing behaviors may or may not be crimes; in many cases, depending on how the phrase is understood by people using the hot line, they probably arent.

The Director of Minneapoliss Department of Civil Rights, Velma Korbel, explains the rationale behind the new reporting system:

Since the general election, many of us have experienced, witnessed firsthand or heard of actions of: racism, xenophobia, sexism and bigotry directed at people here and in cities across the United States.

So this is all about the Resistance to President Trumps administration, a fact that is reaffirmed in the next paragraph.

In no uncertain terms, hate-motivated speech and actions have no place in Minneapolis nor will they be tolerated. Activities such as these are against the law.

No, they arent. Hate speech is, in general, protected by the First Amendment, as the Supreme Court reaffirmed only days ago. And what hate-motivated speech might be, I have no idea. Likewise with hate-motivated actions. If such actions are crimes, they certainly are against the law; if they are not crimes, they are not against the law. There is no general prohibition against saying or doing things that are motivated by hate, nor can there be.

No one is above the law.

An ironic observation, given that in this instance the City attempts to place itself (and perhaps certain categories of people expected to use the hot line) above the law.

More from the same Message to the Minneapolis Community by Ms. Korbel:

Minneapolis is committed to human rights and racial equity for anyone who lives, works, and visits our city. We want everyone to feel safe and welcome here. This department echoes Minneapolis mayor, Betsy Hodges resolve and commitment when she stated: I will not compromise the public safety of the people of Minneapolis to satisfy Trumps desire to put politics before public safety. Minneapolis is being built and strengthened by people from all over the world and I am grateful for their commitment to our city. I stand with them today and will continue to take that stand as the President-elect prepares to take office.

Again, it is all about Trump. Which makes you wonder whether expressions of support for President Trump and his agenda would be considered hate-motivated speech by those who man Minneapoliss hot line, or by the citys misguidedto give her the benefit of the doubtDirector of the Department of Civil Rights.

Follow this link:
Free Speech? Not In Minneapolis! - Power Line (blog)

According to the prosecution, Carter spent the two weeks before Roy's suicide texting him encouragement to kill himself. On July 12th, 2014, Roy drove to a remote Target parking lot and filled the cab of his truck with carbon monoxide from an external generator.

He reportedly called Carter while the truck filled with fumes. At one point, Roy changed his mind about committing suicide and exited the cab but went back in at Carter's urging. She then listened to him slowly die without calling emergency medical services for help. What's more, the prosecution only learned of this phone conversation only from texts sent between Carter and a friend weeks after the incident.

While courts have generally treated suicide as an act of free will, Judge Lawrence Moniz decided last week that Carter's actions (and subsequent inaction) influenced Roy's thinking enough to warrant her liability in his death. According to Massachusetts state law, involuntary manslaughter is defined as "an unlawful killing that was unintentionally caused as the result of the defendant's wanton or reckless conduct" and is punishable "by imprisonment in the state prison for not more than 20 years or by a fine of not more than $1,000 and imprisonment in jail or a house of correction for not more than two-and-one-half years."

This ruling is not sitting well with the Massachusetts branch of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). "It presents a number of problems, both from the criminal-justice standpoint and from a freedom-of-speech standpoint," ACLU of Massachusetts Legal Director Matthew Segal said. "For criminal justice, this is a very aggressive charge. You don't have to believe that what Ms. Carter said is appropriate. In fact, you can believe that what she said was awful and still believe that it isn't manslaughter."

Professor Robert Weisberg, faculty co-director at the Stanford Criminal Justice Center, isn't so sure. "I think it's a perfectly plausible interpretation of the involuntary-manslaughter statute," he said. "The attraction of it for the prosecutor was that, although we now have lots of very specific cyberbullying statutes in various states, there's nothing in our homicide statutes, generally, which limits the crime to a particular way of causing death. You have to cause death and you have to cause it with a certain mental state in which, in this case, it's a kind of version of recklessness."

From the free-speech standpoint, the ACLU is concerned that if this conviction is upheld, it may lead to "all kinds of other prosecutions." Legal issues aside, he worries that this prosecution may dissuade people from engaging in uncomfortable but necessary dialogues with their loved ones, such as discussions about end-of-life decisions.

"The Commonwealth of Massachusetts has seemingly committed itself to the view that should one spouse convince the other to commit suicide because, say, her spouse was in horrible pain and suffering, she could be found guilty of manslaughter," Segal argued. "It really shouldn't be within the prosecutor's discretion whether to charge them. ... And the mere possibility that this would be a crime in Massachusetts would make people afraid to even have that [end-of-life] discussion."

Here again, Weiberg disagrees. "My guess is that this will have very little effect on free speech," he said. "If anything, it's likely to embolden prosecutors" to try to imitate this interpretation in similar cases of suicide.

And whether this verdict even holds up on appeal is very much still up in the air. "There's a good chance that the case the conviction can be overturned," Weisberg said. "The boldest thing that the prosecutor did was argue that [Roy] would not have killed himself had it not been for her influence. Appellate-case law about causation makes it difficult to prove cause when there's a suicide. There are cases where somebody commits a horrible assault on somebody else, like a sexual assault, and then the victim of the assault commits suicide. This is a different kind of case. This is kind of persuasion."

The ACLU is also concerned that the youth of the commonwealth could be adversely affected by this ruling. Segal points out that the prosecution did not attempt to try Carter under more-constrained cyberbullying laws but rather a more expansive theory of what constitutes criminally negligent homicide.

"I don't remember the defense for Ms. Carter asking the judge to condone what she said; 17-year-olds across this country say all sorts of horrible things to each other and urge each other to do things that are unwise. The consequence is that all that talk could be charged as crimes. ... There's no limit to the kinds of crimes our children can be charged with."

However, it isn't that different from yelling fire in a crowded theater, Dr. Sameer Hinduja, professor of criminology and criminal justice at Florida Atlantic University and co-director of the Cyberbullying Research Center, argues. It's akin to joking about bomb plots on Capitol Hill. "Sometimes you do have certain situations where the bigger-picture goals call for censorship or a bit of control over what is being said," he said. "We don't want everyone to say just whatever they want."

Hinduja believes that Carter's words and text constituted cyberbullying, which he defines as "intentional and repeated harm inflicted through the use of electronic devices." Hinduja said that harm "is typically insults, name calling or threats, or are forms of embarrassment and humiliation."

What Carter did was "inducing him to feel awful enough about himself to the point that he took his own life, that would be harm," he said. "[Roy] was harmed psychologically and emotionally based on those words. He did research the methods and made some sort of a plan, but at some point he also wanted to not kill himself and demonstrated that as well," Hinduja added "So her words, not exclusively but maybe indirectly, led him to follow through" with his plan.

Cyberbullying is typically more of an offshoot or companion of physical bullying, Hinduja said, wherein the aggressor tends to be someone from school or the neighborhood who continues his attacks and harassment from the day on social media. "It's very easy to continue that cruelty online," Hinduja said.

Criminalization certainly didn't work on the war on drugs, but perhaps it could work in the war on being a jerk online. "I actually think if there were a legal intervention, that would make a difference [in moderating harassment and abuse online]," Weisberg said. "The involuntary-manslaughter case would be very rare (though, fortunately, very few people may end up like the victim here) but I think a serious threat of low-level cyberbullying convictions, misdemeanor convictions, could change behavior. I think that's probably the way to go."

So what's to be done to curb this behavior outside of criminalizing it? Hinduja hopes that social mores will change sufficiently to dissuade people from constantly encouraging each other to go die in various fires. If not, Hinduja said, "based on this verdict, maybe we're opening a Pandora's box, where if you do say something like that to another individual repeatedly" and can be identified by law enforcement, "maybe you share in the guilt or are culpable to some degree." The threat of prosecution could be sufficient to stifle this sort of harassment online.

Segal, however, doesn't think curbing such speech will be easily accomplished through censorship and threats of prison time. "We all know that even if there is a chilling effect [brought on by legal liabilities]," he said, "kids are going to continue to be kids."

More:
Death by text: How the Michelle Carter case will impact free speech - Engadget