“The Rule of Goats applies. Slightly paraphrased — for this family newspaper — the rule states: If you kiss a goat, even if you say you're doing it ironically, you're still a goat-kisser.”
You don’t get off scott-free just because you say “I was only being ironic“.
Let's say I am on a forum talking theoretically about robbing a bank (say I'm a fan of the PayDay series or something). Let's say that someone on that forum ended up robbing a bank, perhaps using information that I provided.
Did I commit a crime? Am I am accomplice?
There's a big difference between planning a real crime and planning a fictitious one, but they can look identical to an outside observer.
As for your quote, I don't think it really applies here. You can say all sorts of trouble things, but I don't think you can accidentally become an accomplice, at the very least need motive.
>There's a big difference between planning a real crime and planning a fictitious one, but they can look identical to an outside observer.
The /pol/ boards on 4chan and 8chan aren't role playing boards. No one there is discussing race war in the context of an ARG or a fictional universe. The people being ironic here know perfectly well they are ironically supporting actual racists who actually sometimes commit violence in the real world.
>The /pol/ boards on 4chan and 8chan aren't role playing boards.
They often are. Lots of threads are about fictitious things. Don't make me go there to find examples.
> The people being ironic here know perfectly well they are ironically supporting actual racists who actually sometimes commit violence in the real world.
That's different.
If you post something racist, that's a general statement and lots of people will see it.
If you post about a story someone is telling, with specific facts, you have no idea if it's connected to reality or not.
>They often are. Lots of threads are about fictitious things. Don't make me go there to find examples.
Not a fictitious setting, which makes the comparison to a game forum inapt. It would be reasonable to assume that someone discussing theft on a GTA forum is not discussing theft in the real world. It would not necessarily be as reasonable to assume that someone posting anti-semitic or racewar content on /pol/ isn't referring to the real world, or to assume insincerity as a default.
It certainly wouldn't be reasonable, if you were that person, to assume everyone else was as insincere as you were, or, if you were a racist, that you weren't talking to a comrade in arms.
Yes, that agrees with my point. If you encourage someone to go to mcdonald's and throw caviar at hispanics, you're saying racist things for real but the actual crime of assault is almost certainly fictional.
Such an encouragement is, again, a terrible idea: not only does it promote racism through implausible fictional story, but it also opens the author to legal risk if someone then implements the implausible story in reality.
“Almost certainly fictional” is a Rule 34 problem: If you can conceive of a belief or outcome, then someone on the Internet will agree so strongly that they will act upon that belief or deliver that outcome.
If a completely different person does it, then they're not the one you told to do it. If I tell one person to drive drunk, I'm not responsible for a million drunk drivers.
I'm not saying it's a good idea to be generically racist, I'm saying it's within your rights and not being an accomplice.
If you post a letter on a telephone pole encouraging one person to commit a crime, could you be prosecuted if many other people then commit that crime?
The answer is likely yes, as simply addressing it to a single person while posting it publicly in view of many others does not act as the “plausible deniability” air cover you assert that it does.
If I post a billboard that instructs “ImaginaryJoe” in how to exploit a weakness of bank security to steal money and encourage “ImaginaryJoe” to do so, and then five other people do so, I will be convicted as an accomplice in all five of the cases against them.
If you are at risk of prosecution for past activities along these lines at forums such as 4chan, I encourage you to consult with a lawyer at your earliest convenience.
> The answer is likely yes, as simply addressing it to a single person while posting it publicly in view of many others does not act as the “plausible deniability” air cover you assert that it does.
I'm not talking about wink-wink-nudge-nudge """addressing""" one person. I mean honestly having a conversation with a single person, but it happens to be in a public place.
If I'm walking down the street talking about bank robbery plans with a friend, and a complete stranger that I didn't even know was listening robs that bank, it's unreasonable to call me an accomplice.
> If I post a billboard that instructs “ImaginaryJoe” in how to exploit a weakness of bank security to steal money and encourage “ImaginaryJoe” to do so, and then five other people do so, I will be convicted as an accomplice in all five of the cases against them.
If the billboard just says "Do a fake invoice scam at every bank, ImaginaryJoe!" there is no way the writer is an accomplice to anyone.
Is unprovoked violence any more tawdry because of racism? Most violence in the world stems from causes other than modern "racism".
Any communication channel, by virtue of human nature, is going to enable assaulters and murderers. If you look at assault and murder, most people are victimized by their own kind.
>Any communication channel, by virtue of human nature, is going to enable assaulters and murderers. If you look at assault and murder, most people are victimized by their own kind.
We're not talking about a purely neutral and general "communication channel" on which violent discussion or reaction occurs, when it does, merely by happenstance wholly unconnected to the nature of the community. We're talking about a channel for which racist and violent expression is an explicit part of its culture, identity and raison dêtre. Not a knitting forum in which one knitter just happened to have assaulted another knitter IRL, but a channel for racists in which one racist decided to shoot up a synagogue, in which said shooter linked his motivations and inspiration to that channel.
Also, given that we're discussing a specific instance of racially motivated violence, I don't know what relevance mentioning the existence or relative prevalence of other forms of violence actually has to the topic at hand.
If someone on that forum says “should I try this IRL” and you say “theoretically, it should work fine” then, yes, you will probably be convicted. If you say “no, that’s illegal” and consistently do so any time you’re asked then you will probably not be convicted. If you say “that’s a great idea” you will be definitely be convicted. If you say “that’s a terrible idea ;)” you will probably be convicted while having angered the judge and jury for assuming they’re idiots.
Whether you are for or against bank robberies at nonspecific banks at nonspecific future dates shouldn't be the deciding factor in whether you're an accomplice. I hope you're not right.
I do indeed strongly encourage not trolling people to do illegal things using the Internet or any other method, as the law does not require the courts to take your motivation for encouraging them into account if they then commit the crime you trolled them to do.
I note that you, in essence, shifted the point from “encouraging a person on a forum to commit bank robbery” to “nonspecifically encouraging bank robbery in general”. You’re on your own for interpreting that latter one.
“The Rule of Goats applies. Slightly paraphrased — for this family newspaper — the rule states: If you kiss a goat, even if you say you're doing it ironically, you're still a goat-kisser.”
You don’t get off scott-free just because you say “I was only being ironic“.