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The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 7-2 on Monday to limit convictions for threats made on Facebook, a decision that avoided First Amendment issues but provides some clarity about when online communication can be considered a federal crime.
The decision favors Anthony Elonis, a Pennsylvania man sentenced to 44 months in prison for posting violent messages on Facebook about, among other people, his estranged wife. The justices determined that just because a victim views an online message as a threat, that doesn't necessarily mean that the perpetrator is guilty of threatening behavior.
Some of Elonis' posts read like rap lyrics: “There’s one way to love ya, but a thousand ways to kill ya ... hurry up and die bitch." His wife, who had recently left him, was fearful enough to obtain a protective order. But Elonis argued that his writings were harmless and "therapeutic," and that he was inspired by the rapper Eminem.
The justices had to decide whether Elonis's writings constituted "true threats," or communications that the issuer intends to be threatening, a category of speech that is not protected under the First Amendment. In 2003, for example, the high court found that the government must prove that a person burning a cross at a Ku Klux Klan rally meant the gesture as a threat. But this issue becomes dicier when examined through the lens of the Internet, where speech can reach audiences that the writer never intended and be taken out of context.