Comments on: When Web Chat Turns Into Threats http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2005/11/when_web_chat_t_1.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sat, 21 Nov 2009 21:19:19 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: John Armstrong http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2005/11/when_web_chat_t_1.html/comment-page-1#comment-62269 John Armstrong Wed, 09 Nov 2005 10:11:38 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2005/11/when-web-chat-turns-into-threats.html#comment-62269 As I see it (and tried to advance in an interdisciplinary seminar on computer law over at the law school here), the question is one of appropriate social analogues. This sort of message board -- freely joinable and departable, essentially anonymous, and devoted to discussion amongst sufferers -- is most closely analogous to something like an AA meeting. If an alcoholic says at a meeting that he's going to kill someone he feels has contributed to or exacerbated his problems, is the moderator of that meeting required to alert the authorities? The answers to the question in and out of cyberspace is the same. As I see it (and tried to advance in an interdisciplinary seminar on computer law over at the law school here), the question is one of appropriate social analogues. This sort of message board — freely joinable and departable, essentially anonymous, and devoted to discussion amongst sufferers — is most closely analogous to something like an AA meeting.

If an alcoholic says at a meeting that he’s going to kill someone he feels has contributed to or exacerbated his problems, is the moderator of that meeting required to alert the authorities? The answers to the question in and out of cyberspace is the same.

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