Comment by magicalist
7 hours ago
> The legal issue here is that there should be a very high bar for saying that first amendment protected speech amounts to incitement. But that’s not a principle of law as far as I’m aware.
I don't understand the distinction you're making here. Isn't there being a high bar for saying that first amendment protected speech amounts to incitement literally a principle of modern first amendment law (Brandenburg etc)?
> So any organization that adopts this militant posture for marketing reasons (which is a lot of them these days) could run the risk of that being used against them if any of the protesters end up damaging or destroying property.
Even the way you write this makes it sound like you know it's problematic too.
The exact issue in Brandenburg was about how specific the speech has to be. Broadly saying people should do stuff is different from advocating specific illegal conduct against a specific target. That’s harder to apply here because there’s a specific target. The issue here is more: how influential does the speech need to be on the people who actually took the illegal action. I think the standard should be so high you would need some sort of vicarious liability. Like you hired people to set fires.
> Even the way you write this makes it sound like you know it's problematic too.
That was intentional.
It's not protected speech to direct illegal action from afar, so it doesn't matter one whit if Greenpeace was there six times or six thousand or zero.