Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Should people be free to make death threats? Sometimes, yes

The keyboard weirdos bombarding Labour MP Jess Phillips with threats, after she scoffed at the idea of marking International Men’s Day with a debate in parliament, are cretins of the highest order. Pathetically hiding behind made-up names and cartoon avatars, they harangue a politician for saying something they disagree with. Not by saying to her ‘I disagree with you,’ but rather ‘I think you should be raped’. If you know one of them, please give them a clip round the lughole, and perhaps confiscate their gadgets.

But should these morons be investigated by the authorities? I’m not so sure. Ms Phillips has reported some of her ugly maulers to the police. I think that could be a mistake. For the fact is — and it’s not a pleasant fact, I admit — that sometimes a threat of violence is not really a threat of violence. It is ill-formed political anger, an expression of dissent by those who, for whatever reason, lack the ability, or desire, to say what’s really on their minds. And maybe, just maybe, we should tolerate that in the name of freedom of speech.

It was announced today that the court case against Bahar Mustafa, the student-union official who tweeted the hashtag #killallwhitemen, is being dropped. Good. Only the most literally minded saddo could consider that hashtag a death threat. I know from the death threats I have received that they’re often expressions of political fury designed to rattle you. I’ve been threatened by email and even via voicemail (I’m not on Twitter). Whether the fuming tosspots were telling me they would strangle me with my laptop cable or ‘smash every one of your teeth with a sledgehammer’, something about their threats felt unreal. They were clearly overemotional responses to something I had written.

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