Question

In the 2015 case Elonis v. United States, the Supreme Court decided that people should not be prosecuted for threats made on social media unless it can be proved that the threats are real. What does this case indicate about First Amendment rights in the 21st century?

Answer 1

Answer:

APEX

Explanation:

These rights have had to be reinterpreted to consider how people use new types of communication

Answer 2

With the rise of social media in the 21st century, we're forced to re-contextualize the concept of a threat in relation to First Amendment rights. Any serious threat to harm others is illegal by itself, regardless of whether or not the act is carried out or was ever "seriously" intended to be so. However, the medium in which a supposed threat is presented, is a crucial component when determining if the statement in question should be protected by freedom of speech laws or not: if you call someone on the phone and say you're going to hurt them, there's no doubt this is a serious threat and it's illegal. But if you write a song (for example) about wanting to hurt a person, or you expressed this in a personal journal, it would clearly be taken as freedom of speech and protected by First Amendment rights.

The complex presentation of the Elonis v. United States case, indicates how social media as a platform still falls in a gray area between what's personal and what's public, where it becomes very difficult to distinguish what is a serious threat as opposed to an expression of freedom of speech.

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