It's not pro-harassment to say that a lot of harassing speech is protected by the First Amendment. It's just true. Saying that something is speech doesn't mean it's harmless, doesn't mean it's trivial, doesn't mean it's OK. It just means that it's speech.
If I say that most of what constitutes stochastic terrorism is 1A-protected speech, I'm not saying that I don't think it's a big deal or even that it shouldn't be stopped. But if you just pass laws against it, they're going to get shredded the first time they restrain someone.
Even if you think that speech *shouldn't* be protected, it *is.* If you want to effectively curb it with legal action, you can't just pretend like this massive Constitutional hurdle doesn't exist! Because it does!
And let me tell you, if you think your answer is to just change the law so that it *isn't* protected any more, that's an uphill climb. Scratch that -- it's an uphill *swim.* The exceptions to the first amendment are narrow, and they aren't getting broader any time soon.
I love the First Amendment. I *love* it.

It protects a lot of shitty, vile, harmful, harassing speech that does a lot of harm to real people.

These things are both true.
My answer, so far, has been to work towards solutions that do as much as possible to blunt the harm *without* running into constitutional issues. Because I like the first amendment. But also, even if I didn't, it still exists and will still shred your content-based law.
see also: why deplatforming is good

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More from @KathrynTewson

17 Dec
@tznkai @JimHenleyMusic @jsmooth995 Oh hey, thanks.

I’ve been fighting with trolls on the internet since almost before there was an internet to fight trolls on. In that time, the trolls have changed a lot, but our tactics really haven’t, and it has cost us.
@tznkai @JimHenleyMusic @jsmooth995 Just ignoring the trolls worked great when they were individual people who were just looking to cause a ruckus, like a two-year-old kicking down someone else’s blocks. Eventually they would give up and wander off, no harm done.
@tznkai @JimHenleyMusic @jsmooth995 These days though, the trolls have goals, and they have allies. Now when we ignore them, we don’t win. We just cede ground. We move away into our own spaces and our own curated conversations and we leave the Default Internet to people with bad intentions.
Read 9 tweets
8 Dec
Hey, y'all! Many of you have followed me for my post-election litigation snark, hopefully you all know I'm not a lawyer

However, you don't have to be a lawyer to understand some basic things about the US court system, so with that mind: let's talk about state vs. federal court.
Specifically, let's talk about jurisdiction! Jurisdiction, roughly, is the power a court has over parties or issues.

There's a popular perception that federal court is "the boss" of state court, and that's just not true -- except for a few circumstances where it is.
Some courts are courts of "general jurisdiction," meaning they can hear any kind of issue -- civil, criminal, large, small, what have you.

Some courts are courts of "limited jurisdiction," meaning they can only hear certain kinds of cases.
Read 31 tweets
12 Mar
Greetings from the future of COVID-19! I live in Seattle near the epicenter of this outbreak; patient US0 and the vast majority of the US deaths have been within 5 miles of my house. We’ve been on social distancing for about ten days. Here is what y’all need to be doing NOW.
This isn’t a thread about panic, or purchases. It’s about process and preparedness. My family had to make a lot of decisions in chaos that would have been better made in calm. You have more information and can do better!
When the tipping point comes, it will come quickly — from “really?” to “maybe” to “soon” to “now” took us less than 48 hours, and probably should have been 24. This means any process you can’t complete end-to-end in 12 hours needs to be finished before you think you’ll need it.
Read 23 tweets
20 Dec 19
Let me put this tweet here into some more context.
Amber Krabach, aka @AK4WA, is a candidate for State Representative in Washington’s 45th District. She is a Republican.
In May of 2019, she caught wind of our local school district’s decision to explore the idea of allowing students to celebrate Pride at school, and decided to join the local parent-run private Facebook group to engage in civil discussion on the topic.
Read 11 tweets

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