Comment by [deleted] on 14/05/2015 at 17:47 UTC

3 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)

View submission: Promote ideas, protect people

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all you have to do is not threaten people's safety, and you're fine.

The problem is *perception* of threat.

If I'm Israeli, and I see someone say "We should burn Israel to the ground", isn't that a threat against me, even though it's not directed *at* me specifically, even though I'm not even taking part in the conversation?

Another example: "I hope you fucking choke on a rapist's dick, you stupid cunt". That's *not a threat*. It's obviously not polite or 'okay', but it's not a threat. I wouldn't be surprised if the person being told this *perceived* it as such though.

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Comment by verdatum at 14/05/2015 at 17:57 UTC

1 upvotes, 1 direct replies

decent arguments. I think I'd be alright with proposals to burn habited places to the ground being discouraged. People can go make their battleplans somewhere else.

I wonder if there's some precedent on the second example. Hoping that maladies happen to someone; taking a passive stance, but not actually making an explicit threat....it's still effectively a curse (i.e. "*may you* fucking choke etc. etc."). I'm not very fond of them regardless; they don't particularly contribute to positive discussion.

But sure, I suppose some clarification on these sort of nitpicky devil-in-the-details sort of situations wouldn't be a bad thing...