Questions concerning legality of shock-image trolling

[Lats, Squats, & Oates]

check out this cool website that looks like its straight from the \\\'90s

It is inevitable that some of you will feel wary of clicking that link due to my reputation as a stupid asshole, so for that I provide this handy dandy quotation of important related material!

According to "TITLE I--ENHANCING JUDICIAL AND LAW ENFORCEMENT TOOLS TO COMBAT VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN, Section 113. Preventing Cyberstalking ... Whoever ... utilizes any device or software that can be used to originate telecommunications or other types of communications that are transmitted, in whole or in part, by the Internet ... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person ... who receives the communications ... shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than two years, or both."

So, according to my understanding, this law is saying that if you send something to someone else on the internet, without disclosing your identity; and with the intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person who receives what you sent, you can be fined and/or imprisoned for two years. If you cyber-bully somebody you can be sent to prison. I realize this is old news; this law was passed in 2006 and is in fact due to end in 2011, where it will presumably be revived in a continuous sort of cycle. Beyond that this doesn\\\'t seem like the sort of thing that is easily policed - as in this seems like the sort of thing you get slapped onto your charges after you get busted for having terabyte\\\'s of child porn, spamming hundreds of thousands of e-mails, hacking fbi.gov or whatever other crazy antics nerds get into these days.

Now the intention of this thread is to ask for general armchair lawyering from you all because, well, I find the idea interesting. I\\\'ve heard of this sort of thing before (as im sure you have as well) but I just so happened to come across this direct quotation and it provided me with something to cite, thus making for a much more involved and potent thread. Also the particular wording of this phrase:

... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person ...

lead me to think up some comical instances involving, lets say for instance myself, coming into a random chatroom and going "HI MY NAME IS DANNY QUAKENBUSH AND I LIVE IN SAN DIEGO CALIFORNIA HERE IS A PICTURE OF A MAN STRETCHING HIS ANUS GOOD DAY" and thereby beating the system so to speak. I mean what wrongdoing did I commit when I fully disclosed my identity? Would I have to go so far as give out my actual physical address with GPS co-ordinates and such? Perhaps my SSN would suffice? Its all very silly.

Discuss.


Also where is WAC where is he

[Wasim]

dude what would happen

[Lats, Squats, & Oates]

exactly

[Crabarms]

Or what if you were taking a different approach, not to annoy but to teach.

Maybe images showing a good example how to stretch ones anus without adverse effects could be beneficial knowledge.
Alerting your peers that over stretching your anus is harmful.

In fact I think we should have a goats awareness day.

[Lats, Squats, & Oates]

Or what if you were taking a different approach, not to annoy but to teach.

Maybe images showing a good example how to stretch ones anus without adverse effects could be beneficial knowledge.
Alerting your peers that over stretching your anus is harmful.

In fact I think we should have a goats awareness day.

Yes thats all well and good but I think if the Fed's came to your house to investigate why you were cyber-bullying so many people and you started spouting this shit out, you'd be just as likely to end up in a mental institution as a prison cell.

[Fuzz]

I was wondering about something like this not too long ago. In my American Political Scene class, we were discussing protected forms of speech. It turns out that speech that is used to provoke, or harass isn't protected speech. I was wondering if that makes trolling illegal?

[rtil]

even if it does, it's as easy to get away with it as it is with filesharing. so ultimately it doesn't matter - unless you're an idiot who ends up causing real life harm to someone and you have made yourself easy to track down by investigators

[funzop]

... without disclosing his identity and with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass any person ...

this statement confuses me
ye this is all very silly
i highly doubt anyone is going to be arrested or imprisoned for something like that, unless as you said, they have go around taking down government websites and shit

[unclephil]

dude what would happen

[DrRumack]

im gonna goatze the president

[CoolDrMoney]

Do not send it in the mail whatever u do

[retrosmash]

dude what would happen

[Lats, Squats, & Oates]

even if it does, it's as easy to get away with it as it is with filesharing. so ultimately it doesn't matter - unless you're an idiot who ends up causing real life harm to someone and you have made yourself easy to track down by investigators

you mean like that coolMom who trolled some girl on myspace, who was bullying her daughter, to the point of suicide? that owned

[DrRumack]

lmao i remember that

[redmongoose]

save trolling click here 2 find out how

[Lats, Squats, & Oates]

save trolling click here 2 find out how

fuck