{"id":1525,"date":"2014-12-01T01:19:08","date_gmt":"2014-12-01T06:19:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=1525"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:20:26","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:20:26","slug":"facebook-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2014\/12\/01\/facebook-threats\/","title":{"rendered":"Facebook Threats: Will Prosecutors Have to Prove Subjective Intent?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>By Ana Choi<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scotusblog.com\/case-files\/cases\/elonis-v-united-states\/\"><em>Elonis v. United States<\/em><\/a>, an important case dealing with freedom of speech in the context of social media. Petitioner Anthony Elonis was charged and convicted under <a href=\"http:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/18\/875\">18 U.S.C. \u00a7 875(c)<\/a>\u2014which forbids \u201cany threat to injure the person of another\u201d\u2014after composing a series of threatening Facebook posts about his wife, his co-workers, law enforcement officers, and even an unspecified elementary school. The question to be decided is whether conviction for making a threat requires proof of a subjective intent to threaten, or whether it is enough to show that a \u201creasonable person\u201d would perceive the statement as threatening.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The 1969 case <em><a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=8610537150639053664&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr\">Watts v. United States<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>firmly established that the First Amendment does not protect \u201ctrue threats,\u201d but the lack of further guidance following <em>Watts <\/em>resulted in a split amongst lower courts regarding the proper standard to apply\u2014subjective or objective. The Supreme Court finally addressed this issue in the 2003 case <a href=\"http:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar_case?case=2729037874515332053&amp;hl=en&amp;as_sdt=6&amp;as_vis=1&amp;oi=scholarr\"><em>Virginia v. Black<\/em><\/a>, but the circuit split still persists because different circuits have interpreted the <em>Black <\/em>decision in different ways.<\/p>\n<p>In an age where social media platforms such as Facebook are becoming a dominant channel of communication, the question of what counts as a \u201ctrue threat\u201d takes on new relevance, complexity, and urgency. Because Facebook is so easily accessible and provides instantaneous transmission of messages, there is much less deliberation involved in the process of forming a thought and delivering it to others. The casualness of Facebook interaction would seem to suggest that it is advisable to require proof of a subjective intent to threaten; otherwise, every thoughtless and immature teenager could be held liable.<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, however, the public and sharing-oriented nature of Facebook enables new and creative ways to threaten individuals. Since Facebook allows users to post messages without having to address specific individuals, people can post threatening messages that are disguised as artistic expression or emotional venting. In his <a href=\"http:\/\/www.americanbar.org\/content\/dam\/aba\/publications\/supreme_court_preview\/BriefsV4\/13-983_pet.authcheckdam.pdf\">brief<\/a> to the Supreme Court, Elonis\u2019s Facebook posts are described as \u201ctherapeutic efforts to address traumatic events.\u201d The potential for this kind of post hoc justification suggests that an objective standard would be more appropriate, since it would avoid the seemingly impossible task of proving that a threatening Facebook post was indeed meant to be a threat, rather than a stress-relieving rant.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, the Supreme Court will not be deciding the subjective versus objective question solely based on the specific context of this case; it will be dealing with the general standard to be applied to all threats in all situations. However, it will be interesting to see if\u2014and to what extent\u2014the Court engages with the particular challenges that arise from the Internet and social media.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Ana Choi Today, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments for Elonis v. United States, an important case dealing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[60,68,72,185,198,207],"class_list":["post-1525","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","tag-elonis-v-united-states","tag-facebook","tag-first-amendment","tag-threats","tag-virginia-v-black","tag-watts-v-united-states"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/89\/2014\/12\/Modern-Day-Cyber-Threats.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-oB","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1525"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1525\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1525"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1525"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1525"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}