“The Rule of Goats applies. Slightly paraphrased — for this family newspaper — the rule states: If you kiss a goat, even if you say you're doing it ironically, you're still a goat-kisser.”
You don’t get off scott-free just because you say “I was only being ironic“.
Did I commit a crime? Am I am accomplice?
There's a big difference between planning a real crime and planning a fictitious one, but they can look identical to an outside observer.
As for your quote, I don't think it really applies here. You can say all sorts of trouble things, but I don't think you can accidentally become an accomplice, at the very least need motive.
The /pol/ boards on 4chan and 8chan aren't role playing boards. No one there is discussing race war in the context of an ARG or a fictional universe. The people being ironic here know perfectly well they are ironically supporting actual racists who actually sometimes commit violence in the real world.
They often are. Lots of threads are about fictitious things. Don't make me go there to find examples.
> The people being ironic here know perfectly well they are ironically supporting actual racists who actually sometimes commit violence in the real world.
That's different.
If you post something racist, that's a general statement and lots of people will see it.
If you post about a story someone is telling, with specific facts, you have no idea if it's connected to reality or not.
Not a fictitious setting, which makes the comparison to a game forum inapt. It would be reasonable to assume that someone discussing theft on a GTA forum is not discussing theft in the real world. It would not necessarily be as reasonable to assume that someone posting anti-semitic or racewar content on /pol/ isn't referring to the real world, or to assume insincerity as a default.
It certainly wouldn't be reasonable, if you were that person, to assume everyone else was as insincere as you were, or, if you were a racist, that you weren't talking to a comrade in arms.
“Almost certainly fictional” is a Rule 34 problem: If you can conceive of a belief or outcome, then someone on the Internet will agree so strongly that they will act upon that belief or deliver that outcome.
I'm not saying it's a good idea to be generically racist, I'm saying it's within your rights and not being an accomplice.
The answer is likely yes, as simply addressing it to a single person while posting it publicly in view of many others does not act as the “plausible deniability” air cover you assert that it does.
If I post a billboard that instructs “ImaginaryJoe” in how to exploit a weakness of bank security to steal money and encourage “ImaginaryJoe” to do so, and then five other people do so, I will be convicted as an accomplice in all five of the cases against them.
If you are at risk of prosecution for past activities along these lines at forums such as 4chan, I encourage you to consult with a lawyer at your earliest convenience.
I'm not talking about wink-wink-nudge-nudge """addressing""" one person. I mean honestly having a conversation with a single person, but it happens to be in a public place.
If I'm walking down the street talking about bank robbery plans with a friend, and a complete stranger that I didn't even know was listening robs that bank, it's unreasonable to call me an accomplice.
> If I post a billboard that instructs “ImaginaryJoe” in how to exploit a weakness of bank security to steal money and encourage “ImaginaryJoe” to do so, and then five other people do so, I will be convicted as an accomplice in all five of the cases against them.
If the billboard just says "Do a fake invoice scam at every bank, ImaginaryJoe!" there is no way the writer is an accomplice to anyone.
Any communication channel, by virtue of human nature, is going to enable assaulters and murderers. If you look at assault and murder, most people are victimized by their own kind.
We're not talking about a purely neutral and general "communication channel" on which violent discussion or reaction occurs, when it does, merely by happenstance wholly unconnected to the nature of the community. We're talking about a channel for which racist and violent expression is an explicit part of its culture, identity and raison dêtre. Not a knitting forum in which one knitter just happened to have assaulted another knitter IRL, but a channel for racists in which one racist decided to shoot up a synagogue, in which said shooter linked his motivations and inspiration to that channel.
Also, given that we're discussing a specific instance of racially motivated violence, I don't know what relevance mentioning the existence or relative prevalence of other forms of violence actually has to the topic at hand.
I note that you, in essence, shifted the point from “encouraging a person on a forum to commit bank robbery” to “nonspecifically encouraging bank robbery in general”. You’re on your own for interpreting that latter one.
ps. From elsethread: https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2012/11/its-tim...