Careful what you say in gaming...
QuoteA Texas teenager who has been in jail since March faces an eight-year prison sentence because of a threatening joke he made while playing an online video game.
In February, Justin Carter was playing "League of Legends" — an online, multiplayer fantasy game — when another player wrote a comment calling him insane. Carter's response, which he now deeply regrets, was intended as joke.
"He replied 'Oh yeah, I'm real messed up in the head, I'm going to go shoot up a school full of kids and eat their still, beating hearts,' and the next two lines were lol and jk," said Jack Carter, Justin's father, in a statement to a local news channel.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/27/texas-teen-makes-violent-joke-during-video-game-is-jailed-for-months/
So sexual harassment and verbal violence are now okay, but snarky remarks said in response to these will not get you 8 years in prison despite being under age?!
Ugh. I realize Newtown altered the landscape, but this is still stupidity & paranoia triumphing over common sense.
We (society) get ourselves into these catch-22 situations. If everyone ignored this kids posting as just a joke and did nothing, and then he later he did shoot up a school...there would be lawsuits filed against the game sponsors, players, parents, etc. for what would retroactively be deemed as a failure on their part for not acting upon a threat. I agree with the prior posts but I can also see that when people ignore these sorts of rants from teens they are then held responsible for not taking action. And therein lies the catch-22. Report it and you are paranoid and over-reacting, don't report it and you might later be held responsible to failure to act and prevent yet another horrific school shooting.
Wow, my 17 year old is addicted to that game, hopefully he is behaving chat wise. He wanted me to download and play with him, but I was leary of the installer, so since what I saw game play wise, didn't impress me, I passed.
It's Texas. I say they shoulda fried the kid. The deterrent value there in deterring online gaming rants would have been extraordinary.
In all seriousness, he wasn't a minor and his prison sentence could be up to 8 years. I agree that it's overboard, but it's not like he's a a minor who's already been sentenced. Just want to clarify a fact point or two.
Quote from: Rayfer on June 28, 2013, 08:44:52 AM
We (society) get ourselves into these catch-22 situations. If everyone ignored this kids posting as just a joke and did nothing, and then he later he did shoot up a school...there would be lawsuits filed against the game sponsors, players, parents, etc. for what would retroactively be deemed as a failure on their part for not acting upon a threat. I agree with the prior posts but I can also see that when people ignore these sorts of rants from teens they are then held responsible for not taking action. And therein lies the catch-22. Report it and you are paranoid and over-reacting, don't report it and you might later be held responsible to failure to act and prevent yet another horrific school shooting.
Yes, but context matters, doesn't it? There's absolutely nothing about the context here that suggests the kid was serious about the threat -- and 2 lines hardly qualifies as a "rant." It was a stupid and disgusting thing to say, but it was very evidently not meant in earnest. The idea that he's now facing a long prison sentence is beyond absurd.
If the kid had posted something like that on his Facebook wall, not in obvious response to anything (i.e. without any obvious context), then yes, that would be very worrying and worth reporting.
A decent lawyer should be able to get him out of this. it doesn't seem like a very hard argument to make, and a reasonable jury I think would understand. of course, 'reasonableness' is always a rare commodity...
Also -- "I'm gonna eat their still-beating hearts" --? This alone should signal to anyone reasonable that the threat was not meant in earnest. Unless "World War Z" has besotted everyone with irrational fears of the reality of zombies...
What's scary is the fact that somebody is actually reading all of the in-game chatter from the players.
I see two things with this event:
1. Online chat etiquette needs to be taught to everyone, adults and children. (Myself included)
2. We live in a world now where the list of things one is not allowed to do or say or think is growing exponentially. Scotty, beam me up as there is no intelligent lifeforms left on this planet.
Quote from: GJK on June 28, 2013, 09:44:07 AM
What's scary is the fact that somebody is actually reading all of the in-game chatter from the players.
It is, however in this case it appears to have been someone in game who reported it. What isn't clear is whether she was a fellow player or a mod monitoring the chat room. Given the fact that she was able to look up his location tells me that she was probably a mod in the game. Not good when you're this wrong.
QuoteBut a Canadian woman who saw the post looked up Carter's Austin address, determined that it was near an elementary school, and called the police. Carter was arrested one month later, and has been in jail ever since.
Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/06/27/texas-teen-makes-violent-joke-during-video-game-is-jailed-for-months/
Quote from: sandman2575 on June 28, 2013, 09:41:03 AM
Quote from: Rayfer on June 28, 2013, 08:44:52 AM
We (society) get ourselves into these catch-22 situations. If everyone ignored this kids posting as just a joke and did nothing, and then he later he did shoot up a school...there would be lawsuits filed against the game sponsors, players, parents, etc. for what would retroactively be deemed as a failure on their part for not acting upon a threat. I agree with the prior posts but I can also see that when people ignore these sorts of rants from teens they are then held responsible for not taking action. And therein lies the catch-22. Report it and you are paranoid and over-reacting, don't report it and you might later be held responsible to failure to act and prevent yet another horrific school shooting.
Yes, but context matters, doesn't it? There's absolutely nothing about the context here that suggests the kid was serious about the threat -- and 2 lines hardly qualifies as a "rant." It was a stupid and disgusting thing to say, but it was very evidently not meant in earnest. The idea that he's now facing a long prison sentence is beyond absurd.
If the kid had posted something like that on his Facebook wall, not in obvious response to anything (i.e. without any obvious context), then yes, that would be very worrying and worth reporting.
A decent lawyer should be able to get him out of this. it doesn't seem like a very hard argument to make, and a reasonable jury I think would understand. of course, 'reasonableness' is always a rare commodity...
Also -- "I'm gonna eat their still-beating hearts" --? This alone should signal to anyone reasonable that the threat was not meant in earnest. Unless "World War Z" has besotted everyone with irrational fears of the reality of zombies...
Sandman....yes, I agree with your points, but in many of the past school shooting it turns out there were things posted, said, etc. by the perpetrators that were ignored or not taken seriously and then later those who read them (psychologists, teachers, etc.) are held accountable for failing to take action. I just feel for those who have to make these subjective opinions regarding context and who is and who isn't serious about actually doing what they posted. How do know which are real and which are just jokes? Not an easy thing to do when the stakes are so high. In this instance it sure appears this kid should be let go.
We are damned if we do, damned if we don't. Everyone looks to the actual perpetrators of school shootings and says "They had all this online activity, stated their intent, and nobody took them seriously." Then we look at this kid, act on his joke, and it makes us look too jumpy or foolish.
Also, adding "LOL" and "j/k" is like saying "With all due respect..." right before you say "your mother is a slut." Or "I'm just kidding" after you say, "your wife looks like a man."
Maybe the best route would be to ignore what people post online and make it harder to get guns... 8)
Quote from: son_of_montfort on June 28, 2013, 12:09:26 PM
and make it harder to get guns... 8)
paging Jarhead. Jarhead to the front desk. :)
Believe me, I'm all for caution and taking threats seriously. And again, I think what the kid wrote was awful. But I'm just kinda surprised at the overreaction in this case, which to me seems pretty cut and dried: young kid was pissed off about something while online gaming (...an activity known for sparking, shall we say, tempers) and he shot his mouth off writing something stupid. But criminal charges? Jail time? I find it mind-boggling. I don't think as an ethical matter that people should make jokes about heinous massacres of school children. However, i also don't think there's anything criminal about what this kid did.
Quote from: son_of_montfort on June 28, 2013, 12:09:26 PM
Maybe the best route would be to ignore what people post online and make it harder to get guns... 8)
looking for a beat down arent ya.
^ As if you all COULD!
It was said tongue-in-cheek to get you all riled up... so that you say something awful on the internet... so that I can report you to the authorities. :P
So, you can kill some one in game but, you go to jail if say your going to kill some one while in the game, huh?
I suppose it's not unreasonable, in the light of previous crimes, to take such a threat seriously, and report it. The kid could then be investigated, told off and informed that he's being watched. Thus any potential crime could hopefully be averted, but without a wildly (IMO) over-the-top punishment for a loss of temper and demonstration of poor taste. He could also be stopped from buying firearms (if that is possible/legal).
We had a similar thing in the UK a few years back when somebody who was pissed off at his flight being delayed by bad weather tweeted that he would blow up the airport. He was convicted (don't recall the sentence) but eventually managed to overturn it on appeal.
Quote from: Father Ted on June 28, 2013, 06:02:43 PM
I suppose it's not unreasonable, in the light of previous crimes, to take such a threat seriously, and report it. The kid could then be investigated, told off and informed that he's being watched.
A completely rational approach, and one that comes out of a casual discussion on a forum dedicated to computer wargaming. While I'm happy to assert that collectively our happy band is clearly of above average intelligence, I can't believe we're
that much smarter that this would occur to us, but no one in the entire Texas justice system or state government.
People really need to start pulling their heads out. The response to every damn thing that has even a possibility of going wrong is not to pass a bunch of laws and always take the most extreme interpretation of things possible, and then plaster is all over cable news 24/7 to have a load of no-talent pretty talking heads gush about it.
We are better than this.
(Apologies for the rant and straying from the topic of gaming. Sh*t just makes me grumpy)
Quote from: Father Ted on June 28, 2013, 06:02:43 PM
We had a similar thing in the UK a few years back when somebody who was pissed off at his flight being delayed by bad weather tweeted that he would blow up the airport. He was convicted (don't recall the sentence) but eventually managed to overturn it on appeal.
To me, there's a significant difference between what this kid did while playing a video game and what that bloke did in an airport. IMO, that guy deserved to be charged with a crime. It's well known that you don't make (much less broadcast over Twitter) terroristic threats in an airport, even in jest. Given the context, that moron deserved to be arrested. Saying "I'm going to blow up an airport"
in an airport is a deliberately provocative act. It's like saying "please arrest me, I'm an idiot, and potentially an unstable idiot." What the kid did was stupid and disgusting, but I fail to see how he even potentially posed a threat. He responded in a stupid way to someone else's provocation, and in a way that seems clear he was just making a stupid, exaggerated claim, not hinting at actual intent to carry out a violent act.
Quote from: Martok on June 28, 2013, 08:11:36 AM
Ugh. I realize Newtown altered the landscape, but this is still stupidity & paranoia triumphing over common sense.
Indeed.
The heavy interventionist hand of society & gov't is reaching ever-deeper down our throats.
Now that I've typed this out on an internet forum, perhaps big brother will be showing up to take me away. Ya know.. for the good of the whole, right? ;D
And then there were two.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/02/second-teen-spends-months-in-jail-for-video-game-threat/
Quote from: sandman2575 on June 28, 2013, 08:46:31 PM
Quote from: Father Ted on June 28, 2013, 06:02:43 PM
We had a similar thing in the UK a few years back when somebody who was pissed off at his flight being delayed by bad weather tweeted that he would blow up the airport. He was convicted (don't recall the sentence) but eventually managed to overturn it on appeal.
To me, there's a significant difference between what this kid did while playing a video game and what that bloke did in an airport. IMO, that guy deserved to be charged with a crime. It's well known that you don't make (much less broadcast over Twitter) terroristic threats in an airport, even in jest. Given the context, that moron deserved to be arrested. Saying "I'm going to blow up an airport" in an airport is a deliberately provocative act. It's like saying "please arrest me, I'm an idiot, and potentially an unstable idiot." What the kid did was stupid and disgusting, but I fail to see how he even potentially posed a threat. He responded in a stupid way to someone else's provocation, and in a way that seems clear he was just making a stupid, exaggerated claim, not hinting at actual intent to carry out a violent act.
To be fair, I just cited that off the top of my head - I don't know the exact wording or timing of his tweet. What I remember is that to me, when it was reported at the time, it seemed pretty obvious that he was joking. And the point I made was not that the
arrest was inappropriate, but that a check to make sure that he wasn't really planning to blow anything up, followed by a ticking off for worrying everybody, would have been a better way of dealing with it.
And, @panzerde, thanks for damming me with faint praise ;)
Quote from: Father Ted on July 02, 2013, 04:29:54 PM
And, @panzerde, thanks for damming me with faint praise ;)
Apologies for not making it absolutely clear that you're not only considerably more intelligent than the entire Texas legislature and justice department combined, but are also better looking and a far superior judge of character! ;D
Quote from: LongBlade on July 02, 2013, 03:01:56 PM
And then there were two.
http://dailycaller.com/2013/07/02/second-teen-spends-months-in-jail-for-video-game-threat/
Bloody hell.
And of course, nothing happens to the little shit who provoked him into making that comment in the first place. I hope he gets penis cancer.
If were going to start arresting people for what they say online, how about we arrest just about everyone from the DOTA community. And just about every 15 year old kid who plays COD for yelling things like "I'm gonna F*** you in the A**", etc. over voice chat.
Quote from: Kushan on July 02, 2013, 11:40:23 PM
If were going to start arresting people for what they say online, how about we arrest just about everyone from the DOTA community. And just about every 15 year old kid who plays COD for yelling things like "I'm gonna F*** you in the A**", etc. over voice chat.
...which explains the entire NSA snooping debacle.
So you load up a database with millions of people's phone conversations bitching about XYZ. Now what?
Somebody has an unhappy experience at the DMV and gripes about it over the phone? Does that result in a terror warning?
At what point will idiocy no longer trump common sense? Or law?
Wow!
It seems the thought police in Texas are hard at work trying to set new precedents for thought crimes.
Quote from: LongBlade on July 02, 2013, 11:46:21 PM
At what point will idiocy no longer trump common sense? Or law?
Never the way I'm seeing things.
QuoteIndeed.
The heavy interventionist hand of society & gov't is reaching ever-deeper down our throats.
Now that I've typed this out on an internet forum, perhaps big brother will be showing up to take me away. Ya know.. for the good of the whole, right?
Looks like you just won yourself an 8 week all expense paid caribbean cruise to the lovely island of Cuba where you'll be staying at the world famous Guantanamo Hilton.
During this 8 week stay you will be required to attend daily mental health and hygiene conditioning seminars along with some lengthy classes on internet etiquette and be required to view many hours of thought crime awareness videos.
After all required tasks are completed in a satisfactory manner you will then be allowed to reclaim your US citizenship and rejoin your community on a probationary status until it has been determined you are no longer a threat to yourself or society.
We look forward to your visit and wish you the best of luck.
With warm regards,
Department of Homeland Security. :)
Quote from: panzerde on July 02, 2013, 06:44:07 PM
Quote from: Father Ted on July 02, 2013, 04:29:54 PM
And, @panzerde, thanks for damming me with faint praise ;)
Apologies for not making it absolutely clear that you're not only considerably more intelligent than the entire Texas legislature and justice department combined, but are also better looking and a far superior judge of character! ;D
That's more like it!