Be careful what hyperbole you post on the internet (1 Viewer)

[Rove!]

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/06/25/how-the-feds-asked-me-to-rat-out-commenters.html

On May 31, I blogged about the life sentence given to Ross Ulbricht, the creator of the “dark web” site Silk Road, by Judge Katherine Forrest. In the comments section, a half-dozen commenters unloaded on Forrest, suggesting that, among other things, she should burn in hell, “be taken out back and shot,” and, in a well-worn Internet homage to the Coen Brothers movie Fargo, be fed “feet first” into a woodchipper.The comments betrayed a naive belief in an afterlife and karma, were grammatically and spelling-challenged, hyperbolic, and… completely within the realm of acceptable Internet discourse, especially for an unmoderated comments section. (Like other websites, Reason is not legally responsible for what goes on in our comments section; we read the comments sometimes but don’t actively curate them.)

But the U.S. attorney for U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York thought differently and on June 2 issued a grand jury subpoena to Reason for all identifying information we had on the offending commenters—things such as IP addresses, names, emails, and other information.

 

[rockaction]

This is being covered extensively in the (not really) ***OFFICIAL Free Speech Thread*** at the bottom of this page or on the next one.

Feel free to debate, though.

Here's a link to that thread (the title refers to a recent decision by the European Court of Human Rights to hold magazines liable for their commenter's comments: ***Official Free Speech Thread*** ECHR Rules Mags Liable For Comments

 

[FlapJacks]

Big brother is watching