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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: October 6th, 2023

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  • Neeson was judged not to have met the threshold for inciting violence despite describing in detail how he planned and attempted to carry out a racially motivated attack. In my opinion that’s a more specific incitement to violence than the Linehan tweet because it is specific and credible.

    Yes, he throw in a few comments about how he regrets it and won’t do it again but we’re talking about the contents of a statement as opposed to the context.* I’m not convinced either situations should be considered incitement to violence but the Neeson one seems closer to satisfying the criteria for police intervention.

    *The law would consider the statements in isolation, like I can’t go on a misogynistic/homophobic/racist rant and then add “just kidding” at the end to escape any repercussions.



  • I disagree with a lot of what Linehan says but I didn’t see his tweets as breaching the theshold for inciting violence. I think a threat needs to have the maker/sender of it claim that they, or those close to them, are credibly about to enact the violence.

    The tweet I saw, not sure if it’s the one that got him in trouble, was similar to how people put “punch nazis” in their twitter bio. To me, that is non-specific and not a credible threat.

    Edit: A better example might be the time actor Liam Neeson told an interviewer an anecdote about how he left his house armed with a club with the intention of committing a racially aggravated hate crime. For some reason he thought it would be a good promo for his new action film? At any rate, the way he described the specifics of what he intended to do seems like a clear example of inciting violence.