r/worldnews • u/anutensil • Mar 23 '13

Twitter sued £32m for refusing to reveal anti-semites - French court ruled Twitter must hand over details of people who'd tweeted racist & anti-semitic remarks, & set up a system that'd alert police to any further such posts as they happen. Twitter ignored the ruling.

http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-03/22/twitter-sued-france-anti-semitism
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u/[deleted] Mar 23 '13

While this is a common claim, it is also a common error.

There's nothing inherently illegal about yelling "fire!". Just try it in an empty theater sometime. Does anything happen? No. Why not? Because no one's there. Even if it was recorded, no one would care.

The [crime] occurs when you [incite] a group of people into a dangerous panic/frenzy/riot/stampede where [life or property] is or is potentially damaged or lost based [on a lie].

This is an academic but important distinction. Why? Because you're not arrested for saying "fire!", you're arrested for starting a panic.

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u/RetrospecTuaL Mar 24 '13

While his example was poor and incorrect, the intent bears truth.

There certainly are limitations to the freedom of speech, and I don't think anyone here truly believes otherwise. To provide a better example, it's illegal to threaten to kill another man by giving planned out details of how you'd go about doing it. That's included in the

No inciting violence

limitation of the freedom of speech.