zlacker

Two fold: Legal consequences if some of the people threatened by him want to sue or have him indicted about it. And whatever YC as his employer sees fit for the resulted harm on the reputation of the company.

So, in the end, it can be everything from nothing to a criminal charge and conviction with loosing his job somewhere in the middle.

>>hef198+(OP)
There is zero chance he could be indicted for a threat based on that tweet. No responsible prosecutor would try.

Even if you take "die slow motherfucker" literally, it's not a threat. A wish that someone dies is not a threat. "I will kill you" is a threat.

>>slibhb+kl
Good for him I guess. Leaves civil lotigation, or not, IANAL after all. As I said, nothing happening to him is a possible outcome as well.

>>slibhb+kl
to clarify, in the US, "I will kill you" may or may not be considered a threat. It depends on whether or not it's actionable. If it's a tweet, it's probably not going to be considered actionable.

People talk shit all the time, a lot of people in this post need to calm down and stop being so quick to be offended.

Should have said it? Probably not. Does that make him a danger to anyone? Not by itself it doesn't.

>>PH95Vu+gB
Is there a legal distinction for public figures? If Jodie Foster says, “I will kill you” does that change the calculus at all?

Or of course, “Won’t someone do something about this troublesome priest”

>>0cf861+oL
In the US it does but generally that's when it's directed AT a public figure. I doubt there's any specific rules when it comes FROM a public figure.

>>PH95Vu+gB
If he said "I will kill you" it'd be a pretty open threat. I'm sure it'd still be argued a lot in courts on if it's genuine but it'd be an actual argument.

Saying "die motherfucker" makes it less obvious. Since the other extreme of "this person should die" is crude, but not a threat (lest Twitter would be shut down overnight). So it'd come down to the judge and how they interpret the phrase to get any headway

>People talk shit all the time

And that isn't right as a concept. "Shit talking" is almost never necessary in modern discourse. But the US has strong libel laws so "talking shit" won't lead to much legal consequence.

>>johnny+uZ1
educate yourself

https://quinnanlaw.com/criminal-defense/elements-of-criminal...

It isn't polite speech that needs to be protected and the tests for whether something is an actual threat or not is well understood, there's no excuse for you not knowing them unless you don't live in the US.

>>PH95Vu+nR2
Okay, and a lawyer can easily argue 4/5 of those points if he did indeed "I'll kill you". He's a person in power with the means to find the subjects listed.

I'm not a lawyer but I'm just saying that I can see it being argued based on the phrasing and how far the subjects wanted to escalate this. Whether or not it would be effective or viable is another question.

>>johnny+3S2
sure, a lawyer can argue anything they want, the issue is that our court system has precedent going back 100+ years.

One of the reasons for this precedent is to prevent exactly what you're attempting to do here, which is to curb someone's freedom of expression using the law.

>>PH95Vu+rh7
I'm not a lawyer so I won't say if they could win. I'm just saying that not all speech is covered under freedom of expression. Threats are not covered. Slander/libel is not covered.

>>johnny+Rk7
that's called moving the goalpost, the original discussion is about whether or not the specific tweats would be considered threats under the law.

The answer is they wouldn't because there's nothing immediately actionable.

"Someone standing in front of you with a knife who says they're going to stab you would be considered a threat! therefore ... something something something ... a tweat by a politician should be punished!".

As I said before, you're not the first to try and curb someone's freedom of expression using the law.

>>PH95Vu+IB7
To remind you of the goalpost:

>to clarify, in the US, "I will kill you" may or may not be considered a threat

This is all I'm responding to. I'm not a lawyer so I'm not going to assert that you absolutely can or cannot consider it a threat. But it's not black and white like you're implied, and are currently implying.

Please don't accuse someone of derailing a discussion if you forgot the context. I've been patient but you've been incindiary in every response. That's not illegal but it is not in the spirit of HN rules.

>As I said before, you're not the first to try and curb someone's freedom of expression using the law.

You're not the first person to pretend you can threaten to end lives and "be oppressed" when the authorities come.

I'll remind you once more that we're talking about a theory here, since Tan did not literally say "I will kill you". Is Tan's literal words a threat? My mind hasn't changed in this discussion so I'll repeat my point and end it here before it devolves into a flame war:

>it will depend on the interpretation of the judge in question who is reading the quotes.

Reflect on this conversation for next time, others would be less hesitant to flag your comments.