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Comment by dirktheman | Hacker News Reader

I think anyone agrees that this whole situation has been blown out of proportion on a massive scale. But threatening to shoot up a school, in the light of recent events... really? What if he actually DID shoot up a school, and afterwards people discovered that authorities WERE warned?

People need to realize that what you post on the internet can be interpreted different than what you actually meant. Besides, threatening with an act of terrorism is never funny, and always a bad idea. My El Al (Israeli airline) flight was delayed once because some prankster thought it was funny to say 'I have a bomb' to the flight attendant while boarding. He was thrown in jail and had to pay for delaying the flight.

In this case, the punishment doesn't fit the crime. I do wish people would think twice before making threats as a joke, though.

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The problem is that it's not a crime to be an idiot.

A lonely teenager who's already angsty gets into a flame war with an internet troll. That happens every day. And much worse things are said between people.

What happened here is a dumb kid was dumb, and either the troll or some busy-body made the call to the cops. And, more importantly, an over-achieving DA with aspirations of being a district court judge thought this case could make her career - "Stopped a terrorist threat" would be a great line in her website, and she will get a whole bunch of publicity down in not-shit-ever-really-happensville Texas. Meaning she will be able to use this to campaign on later if she prevails.

None of this is about the idiot kid. It's all about political ambition and cops doing what they do best - terrorize the weak and the innocent.

There's also a judge who deserves a heaping portion of blame for abject failure to hold the cops to any reasonable standard of 4th amendment rigor. What probably happened is they got a bunch of classified information from the FBI and hastily constructed a very poor "parallel construction" which they are now seeing fall apart.

Actually it is often a crime to be an idiot, and it's quite appropriate. For example, in OP's case of the delayed El Al flight, yes it's a crime to declare to someone who might reasonably believe you that you're bringing a bomb on board. And so yeah, also, only months after Newtown and Aurora to declare that you're going to shoot up a school can be a crime -- although 8-10 years is beyond all proportion and reasonableness. But, especially if you have a history of expressing suicidal and other violent sentiments online, that's a quite reasonable thing for someone to think.

I'd agree that his timing was a bit off, and he didn't land his punchline. But being a failed comedian and telling off-color jokes is, luckily, not a crime. Look at all of those dead baby jokes.

So yeah, making a joke about a bomb or something might ruffle some feathers. But how many terrorists tell a plane full of people that they have a bomb BEFORE the people actually get on the plane? None of them. Because that's a stupid thing to do.

You're right. School spree killers do have a habit to make crazy threats on FB on forehand, though. But yes, fortunately having a deviant sense of humor isn't a crime!

I don't even know how to respond if you don't understand the difference between making a joking threat while on stage at a comedy club, and making one when stepping onto a plane. Again given his previous comments and the picture of his personality given from his profile, it sounds like it might have been believable. It's at least not as clear cut as you're making it seem.

I mean, otherwise we can extend this just joking defense to anything. Mail baking powder to your congress man in an envelope with a note saying "this is antrax" -- what will you tell the FBI when they come for you? "What kind of idiot thinks I'd really be sending anthrax? Can't you guys take a joke?"

At what point can people make reasoned, defensive assumptions about the intentions of people who express threats?

There's a difference between a guy who went through a body scanner and a fleet of sniffer dogs and a guy who sends a package that goes through essentially no security (though you would think these guys would employ better security simply as they are higher profile people who get lots of threats).

And I'm not saying that threats shouldn't be investigated, or even that exercising your freedom of speech doesn't have consequences (it does and should).

But after they looked into his home life. Spoke to his friends. Tossed his room and spoke with teachers. And still found no actual evidence of a plan to commit a crime. The next step is get into contact with Facebook and get that thread. It wouldn't be hard and I'd assume FB gets this sort of request all the time. They probably have a protocol in place.

I'm saying that just saying that you're going to commit a crime is not the same as doing it. And that an idiot kid who says something on Facebook is not and should not be considered, the same as a billionaire-backed, militarily trained terrorist.

Do some disturbed people make threats on Facebook and then carry them out? Yes they do. And so yes, these things should be investigated thoroughly. But the case here was not investigated, it was rushed and sloppy.

Did the police go get the thread themselves? No. Did the police get the kid a psych eval? Not that I've seen here anyway. Did the police do any real investigation? No.

Innocent until proven guilty. That's the way it's supposed to be.

I don't even know how to respond if you don't understand the difference between making a joking threat while on stage at a comedy club, and making one when stepping onto a plane.

While there are obviously differences, I think the joke is fine in both contexts. I think part of the problem is that you are talking about a "joking threat". The point is, the way most people express those jokes, they are clearly not a threat.

Joking about terrorists at airports should be a common thing because it's a natural human reaction to the excesses of airport security. They treat you like a terrorist, so many people joke that they really are terrorists. There's always a big wink-wink that is implied. It is really very sad that so many people feel threatened into restricting their totally harmless and healthy human instincts.

Perhaps part of the reason we're having this discussion at all is that the original story is about a comment on the internet, and it is well known that subtle communicative clues do not convey well over the internet.

So when we evaluate jokes like "Hey, I'm packing a bomb into my suitcase now", I would argue that there is (or should be) no difference between doing that on stage vs. doing that in real life, but there may be a difference when you post it online. Putting a ;-) might be a good idea...

It's not a crime to be an idiot if you are a cop or a judge. This should never have happened, and our system is loaded with rules intended to prevent it. Idiots failed to execute those rules faithfully.

"But threatening to shoot up a school, in the light of recent events... really? "

Yes, absolutely, really. If you are in playground type ranting slanging match, you go of the most extreme things to say, which could cause shock in the recipient. Right now, things like school shootings are the current shock fodder, and well in peoples minds. So people will use that subject. Same with pedophiles and terrorists. And of course, many strands of comedy also use this.

There is nothing whatsoever strange about this.

I'd say it depends on the occasion. For instance, when Louis C.K. says something similar while performing a comedy show, it's absolutely clear that he's not actually going to shoot up a school. It's meant to shock his audience. When you're posting these things on the internet to people you probably don't even know in person (so they have no way to know wether you're joking or not), things can get hairy quickly.

I'm sure the person he made the threats to knew he was joking, and thought it would be a good troll to report him to the authorities. Bad taste aside, when you're not 100% certain your 'threat' won't be perceived as such, please don't write them down.

No, it does not depend on the occasion. It depends only whether or not there seemed to be an actual intent to do something terrible.

Teenagers say stupid shit all the time, sometimes just to see if they can out-shock or out-weird their friends. Especially online. The context of the conversation matters.

> Teenagers say stupid shit all the time

And sometimes they do stupid shit.

Some simple advice: don't shoot people, and don't threaten to shoot people. Threats can be very serious, and shouldn't be thrown about so casually.

You are part of the problem.

OK, I'll bite. Because... why am I part of what problem exactly?

Your first response to this clear case of injustice amounts to "well it's understandable, we certainly can't blame the authorities for being vindictive idiots who destroyed this kid's life over a throwaway joke."

If enough people did blame the authorities, we wouldn't have the horrible system we have. It wouldn't even have to be a majority; we've made progress in the past based on a principled minority of citizens pulling their heads out of their asses. Since you apply the blame that should go to the "justice" system to its victims instead, you are part of the reason the system does not improve.

Whoa! Jumping to conclusions here! My first reaction was not that it's understandable and that we can't blame authorities. It was more 'we can't put 100% blame on the autorities'. Let me be very clear: I'm 100% pro freedom of speech. Everyone should be allowed to say/post whatever they want, no matter how deranged. Unfortunately, that's just not the reality we live in. The reality is that the US has become a surveillance state, and that you should mind what you post online. My point is that if you post stupid things like this on the internet, you can expect some consequences.

Side note 1: The fact that we're having this conversation shows that it's incredibly difficult to get all nuances of your opinion across over the internet.

Side note 2: Free speech in my opinion is the fact that you CAN say anything you want. It doesn't mean that you SHOULD.

I appreciate that you have a special nuanced opinion about this case, but nuance doesn't right wrongs. Tyranny thrives when people convince themselves that their "correct" behavior will keep them out of the woodchipper.

We have freedom of speech. It's been established that apart from actual threats, or a couple of other instances (defamation, libel), this right is absolute. And this example is comedy, so it is clearly covered.

And how is that clear that Louis C.K. will not blow up a school ?

Because of the context. What is the context in this case ? We don't know because the US justice system decided that context is not important.

> I'd say it depends on the occasion.

But the "occasion" was not allowed as evidence (context of the posts).

> Besides, threatening with an act of terrorism is never funny, and always a bad idea.

That's a little narrow-minded. I can easily imagine scenarios where it's funny and/or a fairly good idea.

I stand corrected. Achmed the dead terrorist was hilarious!

Anything can be funny. If you want a perfect example (regarding rape, something widely held to be not funny) look up the George Carlin rape bit.

It doesn't matter what the subject is. Anything can be funny.

That made me laugh, proving your right. As with all jokes, timing is key, though!

> But threatening to shoot up a school, in the light of recent events... really? What if he actually DID shoot up a school, and afterwards people discovered that authorities WERE warned?

I'm not sure why this part matters. The prosecutor might be fired, but at least an innocent boy is not raped while waiting for trial? The boy had no means to carry out the threat -- they searched his home. Your scenario works fine for Minority Report, but not in real life.

I agree that every threat should be taken seriously, but there should be sane and quality judgement in the authorities to quickly dismiss false positives.

People will behave goofy. You cannot put the burden on them.

I agree with you. But I think we don't know the whole context of the thread. Let's give him a benefit of the doubt. The thread topic which we don't know is really important in this case.

My creative mind is thinking, what if the topic is like this... "What is the worst thing you imagine that you can't ever do?" And then he replied that way.

Also, I don't get it why didn't manage to see the whole thread? I guess it is sort of publicly available and can be accessed without even contacting the Facebook authorities.

Rappers have collectively made countless graphic threats against people of all walks and ages, to an audience of tens of millions. It's part of the art-form. Eminem and Nicki Minaj have made explicit threats of gun violence that refer to schools. And they're jokes. For some reason they haven't been arrested for it. Context, maybe. First amendment, maybe.

What if one of them does something? Then their lyrics will be dredged and repeated on the news ad nauseam. "How did we not see it coming?" Humans are anxious monkeys. "Oh shit, words! What if there are intentions? What would we have done if he hadn't said words to let us know of his thoughts?"

+1. I'm as liberal as they come, but the guy deserves the weight of the law to come down on him like a ton of bricks for even hinting at considering to shoot kids in a school.

> but the guy deserves the weight of the law to come down on him like a ton of bricks for even hinting at considering to shoot kids in a school.

They never found any evidence that he even said it. FB didn't give them access to his account. A screenshot is easily faked.

So you're in fact not as liberal as they come. With a view like that you're pretty far from being liberal at all by my account.

Personally, I'd consider a place where you could be convicted for making statements like the ones he did a police state. I say this as a father of a young boy who is at school right now.

I find the very sentiment that this kid deserves the weight of the law to come down on him outright disgusting.

Was it right to investigate? Yes. They might have found someone with a stockpile of weapons getting ready to shoot up the local school or kindergarten - they didn't know the kid or the context of the statements.

But the situation should have changed rapidly once they had searched his home and found nothing, had found nothing else to indicate he was going to actually shoot up a school, and found no evidence of actual planning or specific threats. Have him see a psychologist, maybe. That's about it.

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