by By Susannah Hotovec
When do cyber-stalking and social media threats become actual crimes? The Supreme Court is about to decide what could be a landmark case on Wednesday, April 19th.
In Counterman v. Colorado, cyber-stalking and threats are at the center. For example, Billy Ray Counterman sent threatening texts to a singer and songwriter named Coles Whalen. The texts include “You’re not being good for human relations. Die. Don’t need you.” and “I am currently unsupervised. I know, it freaks me out, too, but the possibilities are endless.”. Counterman was charged in 2016 and sentenced to four and a half years in prison, violating Colorado’s anti-stalking statute.
Whalen has cited emotional distress from the texts and no longer performs in public.
The question is whether or not the threatening texts fall under Counterman’s First Amendment right. There is a question over his intent to harm Whalen, as well, or are “true threats.”
In their Supreme Court brief, Counterman’s team wrote: “Courts have always required a guilty mind even to punish violent conduct-which unlike speech, does not receive First Amendment protection.”
The State reported in its brief: “Threats have long fallen outside the First Amendment because they injure those threatened no matter what the person making the threat had in mind.”
A previous Supreme Court case about social media was from 2014 when Anthony Elonis made a series of public Facebook posts with violent lyrics targeting his ex-wife and other threatening messages. The Supreme Court voted in Elonis’s favor. In his case, Chief Justice Roberts wrote that “Wrongdoing must be conscious to be criminal.”
No matter how the Supreme Court rules, this will be a landmark case. Suppose they rule in favor of the State. In that case, it’ll be a step in the right direction for targeting people on social media, including doxxing (publishing private information about an individual), cyber-stalking, or plain stalking. This issue needs addressing with content creators of all ages, but especially those most vulnerable, namely children.
With the rise of social media and content creators, this case could open up a meaningful conversation about social media behavior and what is or is not acceptable. The courts must decide what constitutes criminal regarding doxxing and stalking (including cyber). A case like this would be completely foreign a couple of decades ago. However, like our time, the Supreme Court must adapt its rulings to change current events. If they rule against Colorado in that it isn’t in violation of the First Amendment, how far does one have to go before they decide that it is against the First Amendment?
I think that this is a very interesting and important case. Many children have social media accounts and may not know of the harmful implications that it may lead to. I think that cyberstalking and in-person stalking can be equally as dangerous because of how much of our lives are online.
I couldn’t agree more with your post. I think social media behaviors should be and will be discussed more as time goes on. When looking at the first Amendment right to all humans and so on I believe when it comes to media that it should still apply. The danger of people knowing all of your information has been a problem for many years I heard about it in middle school almost 10 years ago and it concerned many people. Like I mentioned when it comes to children accounts it will create more laws and regulations.