The Secret Service has launched a probe into an X post by Elon Musk in which he tweeted that “no one is even trying” to kill Kamala Harris or Joe Biden.
The tech billionaire deleted the post on his X platform and passed it off as a “joke.” However, the White House did not find it funny and instead called it “irresponsible.”
“Violence should only be condemned, never encouraged or joked about,” the White House said in a statement. Now the Secret Service is involved.
Aside from the fact that we’re talking about a civil matter between private citizens, you can legitimately get serious government intervention and punishment for certain types of speech. Let’s say you yell fire in a theater, or threaten the president, or publish classified national security secrets.
People who claim to be free speech absolutists (like one of the private parties in this discussion!) usually just mean for them or for stuff they disagree with.
Legal. This is no longer the standard for speech limitations.
So long as it’s a “true threat” and not hyperbole.
This is legal, so long as you didn’t steal them.
You’re technically correct, but you’re still an asshole.
Punishment for yelling fire in a crowded theater isn’t a first amendment violation. Yelling fire in a crowded theater when there isn’t a fire, you know there isn’t a fire, and a stampede occurs resulting in a death, is involuntarily manslaughter.
Punishment for death threats isn’t a first amendment violation, but it is usually coercion.
And publishing classified data without authorization is illegal, but it’s highly nuanced. It can be considered a first amendment right of the press to publish classified documents in some circumstances, but how they obtained those documents is definitely scrutinized. Then there’s always the question of “what is press” nowadays when literally everybody carries their own personal printing press in their pocket.
“Everything I said was correct.”