Ruling in Twitter harassment trial could have enormous fallout for free speech

1. Some fuckwad in Canada released a game where you punched an image of a feminist blogger.

2. Two feminists (who were not the one in the game) organized an internet shaming campaign against him.

3. George Elliot, who had a cordial online relationship with the two feminists from #2, tweeted in opposition to internet shaming, which he considered as vicious as the face punch game.

4. The two feminists blocked Elliot on Twitter, told him to stop mentioning them, and to to stop commenting on heated political issues.

5. They also organized a massive twitter shaming campaign against Elliot, including having someone pose as a 13 year old and accuse him of being a pedophile.

6. Elliot is now on trial for criminal harassment. There are no allegations that he threatened them or sexually harassed them, but they claimed they had feelings of fear, and that is apparently all this is required for "criminal harassment" in Canada!?

Edit: This seems astonishing, but a bit of Googling on the newspaper (National Post) and the reporter (Christie Blatchford) didn't turn up anything--they appear to be legitimate mainstream press.

Edit 2: Coverage in the Toronto Star: http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2014/01/09/gregory_alan_el...

Looks like Elliot did insult them, in that he made a #FascistFeminists tag in relation to them, and in response to someone in the shaming campaign against him calling him a "perv and a sad little man" told that person they were wrong and they should go "listen to (Guthrie) play her s--- music in crappy bars with your loser faux-feminist friends".