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Comment by hbosch | Hacker News Reader

> They also joked about killing Tetrick himself: “Can we pool our money and put a hit on him?” asked Mike Sencer, executive vice-president of AEB member organization Hidden Villa Ranch. Mitch Kanter, executive vice president of the AEB, jokingly offered “to contact some of my old buddies in Brooklyn to pay Mr Tetrick a visit”. (AEB apologized for those statements when contacted by the Guardian.)

Goodness. Good thing these guys are multi-millionaires appointed by the government, otherwise they might get in trouble for threatening to have someone murdered.

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To be fair... I've made jokes like that, if you're saying it to somebody who knows you're joking then there's nothing threatening about it at all. They neither threatened the person with murder (I presume he was unaware) nor, as far as we know, made any plans to do it. Let's hate them for better reasons, that clearly exist, than making jokes about murder.

(Also, IANAL but pretty sure under those circumstances there wouldn't be anything to successfully prosecute, nothing to do with them being government-appointed millionaires.)

To be fair, I don't think making jokes about killing someone is ever appropriate.

Agreed. It's the kind of thing where you can't ever completely write it off as a joke. Even if only for the sake of the person who made the joke: if anything terrible and mysterious were to happen to Tetrick, having previously joked about killing him unnecessarily makes him a suspect.

Wow, didn't think we'd be expressing a particularly controversial opinion. Learn something new about HN every day.

Very strange indeed.

Do either of you have any evidence or statistics that joking about killing someone is in any way associated positively with actually killing that person? If not, I don't know what your points are other than that you find humor of that type distasteful. If you don't have any such evidence, then all I can guess is that you're arguing that we should fixate on innuendo as opposed to evidence, or avoid speech that could inspire other people to fixate on innuendo rather than evidence.

Has anybody who joked about bombs in the line to get on a plane ever bombed one?

That's not the greatest analogy. Obviously I don't suspect somebody standing in line and who doesn't fit the profile of a terrorist, just because they joke about doing something for which they have no obvious motive.

In this case we have business associates--who have already been trying to eliminate what they see as an existential threat--making a joke in private.

At the very least, it's rather distasteful that this is funny to them, especially when you realize that stuff like this actually does happen.

But inappropriate != illegal. The union of what each person considers socially inappropriate is a rather large set... both undesirable and impossible to legally enforce. As other comments say, there are better things to be upset at here.

I'm upset at the defense "I joke about killing people, too".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXQkXXBqj_U

You may want to grow thicker skin. People joke about all kinds of inappropriate things in private. It's often a bonding experience. If I were to tell you something that I don't necessarily mean, but would harm my reputation if it were to get out, it's a form of a secret. If you reciprocate, often we would feel closer.

There are a lot of reasons to get upset in this world, and a lot of things to get upset at. If this is something sensitive to you for personal reasons, I get it. Otherwise, you should probably just accept that people aren't going to always conform to your view of perfection.

I joke all the time with my family and friends that I'll kill them if they ever repeat something I say in confidence. It's tongue in cheek, an obvious over-exaggeration, and often used for humor.

If it made the front page of Hacker News, it wasn't a "private" joke.

That's what bullies always say "grow a thicker skin". How about trying to be kind to others, or is that just not interesting?

IME, bullies actually say "stop hitting yourself". School administrators and parents of bullies (authority figures who could step in to stop bullying) are the ones who say to grow a thicker skin.

There's certainly nothing wrong with trying to be kind. however, this is an interesting issue because I see the desire to force other people to conform to your beliefs a form of bullying.

I suppose it depends on where you place the responsibility of offense. Should everyone be (socially) required to consider the feelings of everyone around them before they say anything? Or should people learn to accept that others won't have their same experiences and values, and in that sense, "grow a thicker skin"?

Put more succinctly, is offense given, or is it taken?

I have a friend, former colleague, who I regularly make jokes about pushing in front of a bus to his face. He knows I'm joking so guess what... he doesn't care.

If I made the same joke behind his back, but still without any wish for him to die... is it suddenly bad? Arrest me!

If you made that joke, you probably weren't also conspiring to do economic harm to a competing business. That puts the comment in a different light despite the speaker's intentions IMO, even if it ultimately amounts to nothing relevant to the prosecution.

IANAL

In most places, to bring conspiracy charges, there has to be an "overt act" in furtherance of the conspiracy. So they'd have to do something to further a murder plot in order to be charged with that in those places.

Conspiracy: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=432 Overt Acts: http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=517

Reread parent post. It says "conspiring to do economic harm", which they did.

That doesn't normally buy you a murder conspiracy unless there were overt acts that furthered a murder plot and you need a felony in there somewhere. There's no law against "economic harm" as such, but there are certain ways to compete unlawfully.

Rather, the article says there's a rule against disparaging other products. That sounds more like policy, rather than law, which is not usually a felony. It also merely says they're 'investigating', so there's nothing for us to even look at until we see whether or not they actually bring charges against anyone.

Does it change the perspective of anything else they've done, e.g. They could be viewed as more willing to do non-murder crimes? It of course shows they definitely don't like the guy, but that's obvious when they were trying to take out his company or whatever.

It's not an element of any crime I'm aware of unless there's evidence of a serious murder plot that we don't yet know about, so it wouldn't be very relevant. They generally try to keep things that make one party look bad, but which are not relevant to the case being tried, out of the courtroom.

That is a "threat" only under the loose definition that the government likes to use to arrest facebook users and the like.

For the U.S., this is Incorrect. That definitely does not meet the standard of a True Threat. It wasn't sent to the person involved, or even posted in their view by the speaker. Even if Elonis v. U.S. Had been decided differently, a Reasonable Person wouldn't look at that and conclude it was spoken seriously. But as it stands, a True Threat has a Mens Rea requirement.

You should read up on the most recent Supreme Court case involving threats made on Facebook: A good intro to the case: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201... Collection of Primary Sources and commentary: http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/elonis-v-united-s... An explanation of what "Mens Rea" means http://lawcomic.net/guide/?p=173 (yes, in webcomic form, but drawn by an attorney)

I'm definitely aware of that case, but I wasn't seriously suggesting that this would pass muster in court, just that this is not a "threat" under the commonly understood definition of threat, and is only on the order of magnitude of "threats" prosecuted by government agents stretching their powers to the limits (charitably speaking).

I was also obliquely referring to this case, which has a closer fact pattern: http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/02/tech/social-media/facebook-thr... (he was clearly joking and there wasn't any clear target to even send it to).

That is actually totally an oversight on my part. Arrest != conviction and it is always the possibility that a random cop/DA is actually a bonehead.

...some of my old buddies in Brooklyn to pay Mr Tetrick a visit.

Based on the picture in TFA, they better bring the whole gang. I don't know if it's the egg-free mayonnaise, but the dude is ripped.

He was a linebacker in college.

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