

 Trolls should go to jail, says Arizona, and I agree - MRonney
http://venturebeat.com/2012/04/04/jail-the-trolls/

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stfu
Smart move Venturebeat. Posting a troll commentary on a troll law. But obvious
trolling is obvious. But the condescending "let me school the interwebs" tone
in the footnotes somewhat gave it away.

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Produce
There's a saying that goes "offense can only be taken." This implies both that
offense can be taken as a result of _anything_ and that it's peoples'
responsibility to not be offended rather than not to offend. The fact of the
matter is that we are all offensive to someone just for being who we are. This
approach will have too many side effects as it attempts to create a world
where nobody is offended by addressing the wrong end of the issue.

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_delirium
> Also, the entire bill being proposed in Arizona isn’t even new legislation;
> it’s just a simple edit to law already on the books that changes the words
> “a telephone” to “any electronic or digital device.”

There's a discussion here about why that change is considerably more
problematic than just a bureaucratic technological update (which the law's
proponents really are arguing, though it's not clear if _this_ article is
arguing it entirely seriously): [http://volokh.com/2012/03/31/a-crime-to-use-
any-electronic-o...](http://volokh.com/2012/03/31/a-crime-to-use-any-
electronic-or-digital-device-and-use-any-obscene-lewd-or-profane-language-
with-intent-to-offend/)

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chc
I normally like Jolie's articles, but it doesn't seem like this article was
thought through very well at all. It pooh-poohs the First Amendment angle —
y'know, the thing that a journalist like her depends on for their livelihood —
by pointing out that owners of websites have a right to censor visitors.
That's true, but it has nothing to do with the case at hand — this law applies
whether or not the website is your own, as long as Arizona feels like it has
jurisdiction (and in practice, what government _doesn't_ believe it has
jurisdiction over the Internet?).

~~~
chc
Weird, it looks like somebody came through and downvoted all the comments on
this story but didn't leave one of their own. I guess haters are, indeed,
gonna hate.

