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Narrow Win for Speech in Online Threats Case

By Tony Mauro
July 02, 2015

The U.S. Supreme Court mentioned rappers or rap music nine times in its long-awaited June 1 ruling on the prosecution of threats posted on Facebook. The court even cited “the well-known performer Eminem” for the first time in its history.

But the court did not give a First Amendment embrace either to rap music or to Facebook postings that mimic the genre. Instead, the court avoided the First Amendment altogether in Elonis v. United States, No. 13'983. Much to the chagrin of speech advocates who hoped the justices would give wide berth to the range of expression in modern-day media, social and otherwise.

Elonis was a great opportunity missed, both to clarify what constitutes an unprotected threat in First Amendment jurisprudence and to suggest how threats conveyed on social media may be different,” said Clay Calvert, a mass communications professor at the University of Florida and lawyer who filed a brief in the case asking the court to protect rap artists. See, http://bit.ly/1Go2dtU.

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