Actually it’s worse than nothing. Youtube promotes comments based on engagement, so while only an upvote increases the tally, voting at all still makes it more visible.

Why are you shifting this argument so far? I never claimed the guy had tourette’s, and I never said this guy shouldn’t be insitutionalized. This is a completely irrelevant example.

The point I’m making is that the “fire” is a classic example of speech that isn’t protected in the US, but with this ruling there’s no way to prove intent. So what if I sat down and continued watching the movie afterwards? I just got over the delusion. And someone with tourette’s would probably apologize, try to calm people down, or even avoid a theater altogether. I’m pretty sure that someone with a peanut allergy can’t sue a peanut farm if they go visit and sample the produce; if you know there’s an extra danger for you specifically in performing an activity then you are responsible.

Not to mention tourette’s could never cause targeted, violent, electronic-message based harassment either. This is a focused, intentional action.

Completely insane ruling. Wild that Kagan went across the aisle for this.

the First Amendment requires proofs of mental state

So I guess it’s basically impossible to convict anyone of anything involving speech? If I yell “fire” in a crowded theater, how can you prove I wasn’t having a delusion that there was a fire? Maybe there was an explosion in the movie and I was so immersed I thought it was real!

Dude had previous convictions and spent years doing this harassing, it’s not like this was an isolated mental break. Truly insane.