Kathy Sierra reports (language and image warning) on some abusive emails and commentary she has been receiving, some of which has been posted anonymously on public websites such as meankids.org (which has now been pulled off the web). She writes, "I now fully understand the impact of death threats. It really doesn't make much difference whether the person intends to act on the threat... it's the threat itself that inflicts the damage." Right - and that's why it's not "protected speech". The utterance (ie., the saying or writing) of a death threat isn't an expression of an opinion, it's an act, and an offensive, dangerous, destabilizing and illegal act. It is one example of a class of utterances, known as 'speech acts', which are intended to do things (usually, things that hurt) rather than say things. The publication of offensive cartoons, which I discussed last year, falls into that category. The behaviour we tolerate in society is the behavior we should come to expect, and I fear the assault on Kathy Sierra is the result of a general indifference to such behaviour, a lapse we, as a society, will come to regret.
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