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Whenever you feel it's difficult to find sympathy for those individuals, try to remember every time you saw someone write something along the lines of "I'm scared to post what I truly think."

In the last couple of years, those comments have become a lot more common here on HN. I imagine it's pretty much the same everywhere else on the Internet.

Yeah, it's "dumb" to post something like that after seeing it backfire so many times, but self-censorship that comes from that line of thought means you're giving up one of the most essential freedoms your country is supposed to stand for and be proud of.

Yes. Self censorship is the thing we need to avoid.

Actually I'm all in favour for self-censorship because if everyone always blurted out every stupid thought they had then the signal to noise ratio of would be horrendous. However there needs to be a sane balance between having the freedom to say dumb things but largely having more sense not to, and having the freedom to say important things which might be unpopular but still needs to be said. It's a difficult, if not impossible, balance to strike.

The thing you're calling X here isn't X. There's a big difference between what the comment you're replying to is calling self-censorship (chilling effects), and what you're calling self-censorship (googling before you ask a question, etc).

If I understand you right, you're saying you support the state punishing people for saying dumb things, but feel that it shouldn't be too harsh because otherwise people won't say important things.

When I first read your comment I didn't think the idea of banning dumb speech was a good idea. But hearing it put the way you just did made me change my mind... because I think it would be hilarious. I hope you get your wish, and your comment becomes Exhibit A at your upcoming trial :p

> If I understand you right, you're saying you support the state punishing people for saying dumb things

I don't. I oppose it strongly[1][2]. I just think the kid is also in the wrong (albeit less so). Sometimes people argue free speech as an excuse to say anything - and while I'd rather live in a world where people have the freedom to say whatever they want, I also think people have a moral obligation to be mindful of the audience they communicate with.

A wedding speech is an example of this. The best man has to strike the balance between embarrassing the groom while still keeping content appropriate for kids and grandparents. So some of the jokes that the groom and friends would laugh at in private might be best censored from the public version.

Granted that example is a really mild scenario that most people wouldn't consider "self-censorship" (if just because it's what most people do in their daily lives without much thought), but it demonstrates how we have a responsibility not to abuse our free speech by now considering the audience we're talking to. And that is where people run into problems.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5991208

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5991171

> but feel that it shouldn't be too harsh because otherwise people won't say important things.

And this is just another example of how some individuals think they can post all sorts of rude bullshit online because "freedom of speech" gives them the right to behave like pillocks.

Given the number of times I've stated and clarified the point that I'm not trying to ban free speech nor am I justifying the teenagers jail time (which is unjustifiable), you have no excuse to behave that way. But who cares about having a sensible conversation when you can beat your chest like the alpha male you assume to be.

The ironic thing is, when people like yourself make insulting remarks like that, you force others to question whether they can be bothered to expose themselves by giving an honest -if potentially unpopular- opinion. So you're effectively encouraging self-censorship by posting trolling remarks.

> some individuals think they can post all sorts of rude bullshit online because "freedom of speech" gives them the right to behave like pillocks

Right. Freedom of speech does give them that right.

You've backed off from your original position all the way to merely making the point that you wish people would think more about the effect that their actions have on others before acting. I think everyone agrees with that.

Taking 14 paragraphs to say "people should think more before acting" is the sort of thing I think you think should be self-censored.

> So you're effectively encouraging self-censorship by posting trolling remarks.

Reread the comment I replied to, and the comment it was replying to. You didn't understand the other side -- you rounded it to the nearest straw man, and then did a poor job of attacking it. I thought it was a waste of space on the site. I do support your right to free speech... I just doubly support it on sites that aren't this one.

Communities don't need to have the same standards as governments. If facebook banned the kid for his comment, that doesn't seem wrong to me. Having the government enforce things like this does seem wrong to me (for the reason that I pointed out: we'd end up having to spend tax dollars supporting people like you while they're in jail).

> You've backed off from your original position all the way to merely making the point that you wish people would think more about the effect that their actions have on others before acting. I think everyone agrees with that.

That was always my position. Trying reading what I originally posted again rather than posting kneejerk reactions.

> Taking 14 paragraphs to say "people should think more before acting" is the sort of thing I think you think should be self-censored

There was a number of points. And the post doubled in size because I had to dumb those points down to people like yourself who seemed unable to read my post in it's entirety before starting senseless arguments. Perversely, it's yourself that should have considered before replying.

>Communities don't need to have the same standards as governments. If facebook banned the kid for his comment, that doesn't seem wrong to me. Having the government enforce things like this does seem wrong to me (for the reason that I pointed out: we'd end up having to spend tax dollars supporting people like you while they're in jail).

"we'd end up having to spend tax dollars supporting people like you"? What the hell is that supposed to mean? I've probably contributed more towards taxes over my life than you have.

And I was never in favour of sending this kid to jail. I don't know how many times I need to reiterate that before you finally click. Or are you deliberate trolling me just for the irony of being an insensitive moron in a discussion about sensitivity?

> He likely wouldn't have announced the same remarks in real life

I don't know, I think people jokingly threaten to do all kind of violent things to each other in conversation. I certainly do.

In private conversation - yes. But posting on Facebook and Twitter is the equivalent to standing in a busy street and announcing your comments loudly for all to hear. Which was my point; Facebook isn't a tool you use if you want to make private jokes.

I am a very loud person, and am not always aware of how loud. I'm sure that I have said such a thing in a situation, probably in a busy street at one point, where many people have heard me.

If you heard someone saying something in a joking manner to their friend in public, however many people hear, you might think they were dumb for being so loud, but not so much that they deserved any more punishment than being told to quieten down/move along.

    I NEVER SAID HE DESERVED HIS PUNISHMENT!

In fact I said what has happened to him was unacceptable (several times in this thread!). The problem here is yourself and a few others are looking at this in a very black and white way so applying the same good vs evil logic to my argument. What I actually said was that I think the teenager was in the wrong, but less so than those who jailed him. He definitely doesn't deserve this and I would never imply otherwise.

Sorry I wasn't trying to suggest that you were saying he deserved any punishment. I was just trying to say that I think that people, or at least I, act more similarly on Facebook and in real life than you were suggesting.

Seriously? You "jokingly" threaten people all the time. To me that seems a little unstable. Maybe I'm just too much of a hippie but I never say anything like this kid did. While he shouldn't be in jail what did he think would happen? It's a public forum that he threatens very real violence - other parents of children that go to school with him would have a very real fear of this not being a joke. Just saying lol isn't really much to go on.

I guess it the kid has a history of violence, hurting animals for example. If so then it seems like a good idea to keep him out of society until this is investigated. If he's the school prankster then forget the case and ground him for the summer. Remember Woz made a similar threat (bomb) when he was in high school ...

lol. Certainly my two main groups of friends spend most of the time joke insult and threatening each other. One layer of sarcasm is the bare minimum.

...you can't find sympathy for someone who gets arrested for making a remark which is very obviously sarcastic/joking/hyperbolic that was taken completely out of context? People need to lighten the fuck up, and take context into account.

Also, once again the scope creep of the word "terrorist" ("terroristic") is deeply disturbing.

It's not the "joke" I have a problem with. If you read my comment you'll see that it's because he posted it publicly. If this was a private message, then I'd have complete sympathy for the guy.

I read your comment just fine. I feel that even in a public sphere like Facebook, it shouldn't warrant that kind of response.

Which was the point I also made. However I'm not trying to argue that it the teenager is entirely in the right. Sometimes several people can all be in the wrong. However right or wrong, he doesn't deserve locking up over it.

>Also, once again the scope creep of the word "terrorist" ("terroristic") is deeply disturbing.

No kidding. I'm trying to figure out who the real "terrorists" are anymore. I mean, are there any real terrorists left in the War on Terror? Because there's a lot of stuff being justified for that "cause" but we aren't hearing a lot about the actual terrorists any more.

And, yeah, I know someone will say it's because we're stopping them all in secret with our super-duper advanced stealth techniques. It's all so neat and tidy.

But, this is exactly what happens when you define a "war" on a concept vs. a specific nation or group. The scope can creep almost infinitely.

If people routinely say things online that they wouldn't say in a public, real-life conversation, maybe we shouldn't apply the same standards to both kinds of communication. (FWIW I think people say similar things all the time in real-life conversations, but probably only in a private context. There are far fewer private conversations on the modern Internet.)

I think the real problem is that in those rare circumstances where someone follows up on their stupid threats, everybody gets in a hissy fit that the warning signs were ignored. The warning signs should be ignored because following up on them is not compatible with a free society, not to mention it being both a slippery slope and a drain on resources better spent otherwise.

> If people routinely say things online that they wouldn't say in a public, real-life conversation, maybe we shouldn't apply the same standards to both kinds of communication.
One of the things I hate is when people say "it's ok to do xyz as the internet isn't real life". eg cyber-bullying can be just as emotionally harmful as saying such comments in real life. While I love how empowering the internet can be, people need to stop treating it like a justification for being dickheads.

> (FWIW I think people say similar things all the time in real-life conversations, but probably only in a private context. There are far fewer private conversations on the modern Internet.)*

I don't agree with that. You have e-mails, instant messengers, PMs on forums, Facebook, etc. There's even the ability to create private chat rooms on nearly all chat protocols. In fact there's more ways to start a private conversation between friends than there is to share content with strangers.

> I think the real problem is that in those rare circumstances where someone follows up on their stupid threats, everybody gets in a hissy fit that the warning signs were ignored. The warning signs should be ignored because following up on them is not compatible with a free society, not to mention it being both a slippery slope and a drain on resources better spent otherwise.

You make some interesting / good points there. Not sure if I agree with them - but I don't disagree either. It's definitely something I'll have to think deeper about.

Well, if enough people agree with the statement it's ok to do xyz as the internet isn't real life (or implicitly agree with by behaving in such a manner), then it seems to me to be a reasonable default position to take. You and I might disagree, but that's just two data points. We probably shouldn't legislate or even feel too smug about our minority taste, as much as it is a minority taste.

Regarding private conversations, I agree that the internet offers the capability to have private conversations, but I'm arguing that the medium tends toward people having fewer of them nevertheless. Of course, private conversation is not well-defined. I'd argue that a exchanging slurs between members of a sports team is more private than doing the same between virtual strangers on a CODBLOPS server; that mobbing during lunch break is more private than mobbing on Facebook; that a confidential conversation between friends is more private than an email stored for potentially forever.

> Well, if enough people agree with the statement it's ok to do xyz as the internet isn't real life (or implicitly agree with by behaving in such a manner), then it seems to me to be a reasonable default position to take. You and I might disagree, but that's just two data points. We probably shouldn't legislate or even feel too smug about our minority taste, as much as it is a minority taste.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that one. But I do appreciate your point :)

> Regarding private conversations, I agree that the internet offers the capability to have private conversations, but I'm arguing that the medium tends toward people having fewer of them nevertheless.

That's a good point. And I think you're right.

Thinking out loud and trying to extrapolate, but how is this different from a thought crime? If tomorrow tech progresses to a point when people's crazy thoughts could be read, would it be justified taking pre-emptive action like this.

> but how is this different from a thought crime

He didn't just think "I'm going to shoot up the school." He said it in a setting where lots of people saw it, and it scared a woman who took him seriously. I think its a stupid prosecution, but there is a big difference between a "thought crime" and acting on what someone wrote that was visible to many other people.

The problem here is the impedance mismatch between what people think of Facebook as and what it really is. A comment on a wall post isn't some private aside between you and your friend. It's a public statement to 200+ other people who can see your posts. The closest analogue is probably posting something on the cork board at your school or office. Would you write "I'm going to shoot up the school! j/k" on the push board at your school?

The problem in the Facebook case is that many of us know what online game chats look like, and know that most of the people on those chats are 13-17 years old, and can't stomach the idea of some spastic Texan being able to get a kid thrown into juvenile detention for saying something dumb.

There is a general theme in people's misunderstanding of how the law works/should work relating to how easy technology makes it to break laws. A lot of the time, the problem really is with technology; if technology makes it easy for someone to shut down the power grid because they get mad at something someone else says on IRC, that's not the law's problem; knowingly shutting people's power off should be a felony no matter what. Tech might have made it easier to do, but the mens rea is the same.

But it's hard to make that argument in this case. Saying unbelievably stupid shit is an inalienable right of teenagers; [insert snarky comment about HN threads here]. It's hard to make a crime out something where no mens was even involved, let alone mens rea.

You're right, there is no mens rea, and that's why I think prosecuting the kid is massively stupid as well as wrong. But I just don't think it's a "thought crime." He didn't just have this thought, or say it in private, or even make a private aside to a friend. He posted it on Facebook where some uptight lady in Canada read it.

It's really easy to forget in Facebook, especially commenting on peoples' wall posts, that what you're doing is putting a statement in writing readable by potentially hundreds of people, not making a private comment directly to your friend. If he had said it to his friend in the lady's presence, and got prosecuted for that, it still would have been wrong to prosecute him, but I don't think anybody would be calling it a "thought crime."

We are all dumb at times.

People say as many crazy things in real life, it's just that we don't walk around recording what everyone says.

It should be possible for a police officer of average intelligence to distinguish between young peoples angry ramblings and a real threat.

And even if it isn't I certainly don't see an argument to the "swat team first, think later" that seems to be the norm.

What if it was a honest to god mistake? Like "I'm going to shoot some [hoops omitted] at school? Would it be easier to sympathize with?

Because it's pretty much the same thing, he didn't meant to offend/scare just make a really bad joke. It's like a proto joke that missed audience/tone.

Did you read the article? It stated his post being:

"Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head. I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still-beating hearts.

LOL J/K"

While it's pretty clear to you and I that he shouldn't be taken seriously - there's certainly no question about the intended context of the joke.

> because regardless of your opinion regarding surveillance

Also, this has nothing to do with surveillance. He posted this on Facebook. Some Canadian woman saw the comment, got scared, and called the local police.

That was actually my point - if you read further on :)