this post was submitted on 18 May 2026
11 points (62.2% liked)

No Stupid Questions

48222 readers
842 users here now

No such thing. Ask away!

!nostupidquestions is a community dedicated to being helpful and answering each others' questions on various topics.

The rules for posting and commenting, besides the rules defined here for lemmy.world, are as follows:

Rules (interactive)

Rule 1- All posts must be legitimate questions. All post titles must include a question.

All posts must be legitimate questions, and all post titles must include a question. Questions that are joke or trolling questions, memes, song lyrics as title, etc. are not allowed here. See Rule 6 for all exceptions.

Rule 2- Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material.

Your question subject cannot be illegal or NSFW material. You will be warned first, banned second.

Rule 3- Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here.

Do not seek mental, medical and professional help here. Breaking this rule will not get you or your post removed, but it will put you at risk, and possibly in danger.

Rule 4- No self promotion or upvote-farming of any kind.

That's it.

Rule 5- No baiting or sealioning or promoting an agenda.

Questions which, instead of being of an innocuous nature, are specifically intended (based on reports and in the opinion of our crack moderation team) to bait users into ideological wars on charged political topics will be removed and the authors warned - or banned - depending on severity.

Rule 6- Regarding META posts and joke questions.

Provided it is about the community itself, you may post non-question posts using the [META] tag on your post title.

On fridays, you are allowed to post meme and troll questions, on the condition that it's in text format only, and conforms with our other rules. These posts MUST include the [NSQ Friday] tag in their title.

If you post a serious question on friday and are looking only for legitimate answers, then please include the [Serious] tag on your post. Irrelevant replies will then be removed by moderators.

Rule 7- You can't intentionally annoy, mock, or harass other members.

If you intentionally annoy, mock, harass, or discriminate against any individual member, you will be removed.

Likewise, if you are a member, sympathiser or a resemblant of a movement that is known to largely hate, mock, discriminate against, and/or want to take lives of a group of people, and you were provably vocal about your hate, then you will be banned on sight.

Rule 8- All comments should try to stay relevant to their parent content.

Rule 9- Reposts from other platforms are not allowed.

Let everyone have their own content.

Rule 10- Majority of bots aren't allowed to participate here. This includes using AI responses and summaries.

Credits

Our breathtaking icon was bestowed upon us by @Cevilia!

The greatest banner of all time: by @TheOneWithTheHair!

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
L3s@lemmy.world
technopagan@lemmy.world
jeffw@lemmy.world
L3s@hackingne.ws
L4s@lemmy.world
11
A kid in my semi hometown in arkansas said he was going to shoot up a wal-mart if we went on a hanta lockdown. He was arrested and everything. Can you really be charged fed for typing? (lemmy.world)
submitted 6 days ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
29 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

So if I put on a nazi blog that said something akin to um I'm going to kill all of you.. Given I don't know who they are beside username and where they are at would I be arrested? How is that different from what the 20 year old did? He was just more specific as far as I can tell.

all 30 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 58 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

People seem to forget that death threats are serious shit. It's illegal to make them, and "psych, joking!" Isn't going to get you out of trouble.

And yes, a threat to a group of nazis is still communicating threats, and someone doing it could face consequences. It's all about whether or not you get caught, and if whatever prosecutors have jurisdiction decide to follow up or not.

See, free speech doesn't mean you can say anything you want without consequences. It's about preserving a fundamental right to not be persecuted for your beliefs, political or otherwise. There's history behind the way the U.S. First amendment is written. And it isn't really about protecting all speech and expression, only wide swathes of them. People, however, persist in thinking otherwise.

Threats of violence and harm weren't protected, ever. Not in the bill of rights, not in the Magna Carta, nor in any other body of laws I've ever heard of that are older.

In other words, it's okay to say you hate someone and wish they would die, but not that you're going to make it happen. Which is a gross oversimplification, but that's the gist. One is an opinion, the other is a threat that has to be taken seriously.

[–] IronBird@lemmy.world 4 points 4 days ago

first rule of actually commiting (useful, impactful) violence...don't tell anyone online or otherwise not down for carrying it out that your going to do it.

you live in a police state where practically everything online is being watched and catalouged 24/7, act like it.

the bar for violence is incredibly low, long as you just...stfu and don't straight up tell people your going to do X, you can probably get away with it with a little bit of planning and common sense

[–] EggInDisguise@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Free speech: "I think nazis and their modern counterparts should be killed"

Direct threat: "I am going to kill these specific people"

[–] Zwuzelmaus@feddit.org 7 points 5 days ago

Free speech

Direct threat

... and many shades in between, where you don't know how you get judged.

[–] FreshParsnip@lemmy.ca 1 points 4 days ago

Even saying you wish someone dead is inadvisable. It's not illegal to say you wish someone dead but it does make you likely to be a suspect if they die under suspicious circumstances

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 24 points 5 days ago

Making credible threats against someone is assault. Freedom of speech has plenty of exceptions like this.

[–] Zomg@piefed.world 19 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Your hypothetical statement is dogshit for comparison.

[–] Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 18 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (3 children)

"In order to grant you a warrant, I'll need proof of reasonable suspicion."

"They said they were going to to it"

"Works for me!"

They can hold him and search his house, but they'll need to find something that "proves" that he was being serious. Proves is in quotes because even if the threat was just a joke, and he was collecting guns for other legitimate reasons, that could be considered proof, and real charges could follow.

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 6 points 6 days ago

I suspect that the mere utterance is enough for it to be a threat, even if a rational person would know it was not serious.

[–] HikingVet@lemmy.ca 0 points 5 days ago

Where I live you can be charged with "uttering threats" and you can have the addition of "with weapons", or "with deadly weapons"

[–] stoly@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago

You live in a zero-tolerance world where that sort of scenario lead to the deaths of many people. It is a terroristic threat and people will take it seriously.