Supreme Court Makes Earth Shattering Decision - Free Speech Online Changed Forever

Hey ladies and gentlemen, Carmine Sabia here for Explain America, and the Supreme Court

has just issued an earth-shaking 7-2 decision that could affect free speech online as we

know it. Before we get started, please make sure you like, comment, share and subscribe

Those little things really help us out and they help our channel continue to grow. The Supreme Court in a 7-2 decision, which is rare, it means that liberals and conservatives

agreed with each other, in a 7-2 decision decided that free speech is more absolute

than prosecutors would have you believe. The case involved a singer who was getting what she believed were threatening messages

from a fan. And I don't want to say what some of the messages said, because we could get in trouble, but

I will say that he was telling her he could see where she was, that she should perish

because she wouldn't talk to him, asking her for a hot date, telling her that he was

going to see her, and just kept messaging her. She would block his account on social media, he would create a new social media account

and keep messaging her. Now, he was convicted and served 4 years in Colorado for making threats against this singer

However, the Supreme Court, now that the guy is out of prison, said the case should actually

be retried because it did violate his free speech rights. And what they said was that the idea that it just, the standard of any reasonable person

would consider this a threat should not be a catch-all. That was the standard Colorado used

They said that any reasonable person would consider what this man did to be threatening

But there were exculpatory circumstances here, is what his people claimed. For example, the man claims to have mental illness

So what their argument is, is he didn't know his messages could be perceived as threatening

So to have the standard that any reasonable person would see them as threatening is really

not fair in his case. This is the court's argument. And the court said the case should be retried, but to keep in mind the First Amendment rights

of people who are speaking. And if the speaker doesn't believe that their messages are threatening, then there should

be no conviction. So the Supreme Court standard via the First Amendment is that the speaker, the person

making the threats or sending the messages as it were, has to believe that they're actually

making threats and that what they're saying is going to be perceived as a threat. But now you're getting into intentionality

How can you know what's in the speaker's mind? How can you know what this person intends

And if you don't take action, do you wait until it's too late

On the other hand, the ACLU applauded the decision and they said that what they were

concerned about is that any speech online could be considered a threat by somebody and

that it would freeze people's speech if they thought that every time they spoke, they could

get prosecuted for making threats. So there is a two sides of the argument thing here

Justice Clarence Thomas was one of the justices who dissented on it actually, surprisingly

You know, it's really a catch-22. I'm not going to give an opinion here because I don't have one, but I would love to hear

your guys' opinions because this is a very interesting case. We do believe in free speech, but we also don't want people to be threatened

And this is very problematic because wouldn't you say that a person who would make threats

like that and do an attack like that, and if you look at the man who killed John Lennon

if you look at Sirhan Sirhan, if you look at all these people, you would say they obviously

had mental issues, right? But they followed through on their threats. So you know, what do you do

And so that's a big question here and I want to know what you guys think of this decision

Please absolutely let me know in the comments. Also, make sure you like, comment, share, and subscribe

I'm Carmine Sabia. This is Explain America. We love you guys. God bless you