No Man's Sky Creator Receives Death Threats After Delay Announcement!

[MikeRox]

Goatseye said:

MikeRox said:

I'm not sure it's going to go away, until anonymity is removed from the internet and people actually have to start taking responsibility for what they are saying.

Does Freedom of Speech covers internet anonymity? This case is pretty old but worth to take a look at it. I don't know if there were mends to the law regarding online interactions since then.

In ACLU v. Miller, the American Civil Liberties Union got an injunction against the enforcement of a Georgia statute that prohibited a person from falsely identifying herself while sending e-mail, posting on the Internet, and more (one of the problems with the statute was that it was too vague). The court ruled it was appropriate to give an injunction, among other reasons, when there was the potential for chilling free expression. The court agreed with the state that its purpose in enacting the statute--preventing fraud--was a compelling state interest, but decided against the state because the statute was not narrowly-enough tailored to its purpose.

Personally I don't think anonymity is part of free speech. Free speech is about somebody being able to say what they think rather than shield them from accepting responsibility for saying what they think in a veil of secrecy.

It's a pretty tough area I guess. As although we have free speech, there are already exceptions to that when they infringe on other peoples rights. I don't really think death threats are included with free speech as it's threatening behaviour, which is itself covered under other laws. There are a few other things such as extremism where "free speech" is already curtailed to some extent.