• Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    …when there’s an actual fire, right? Otherwise your just endangering people by causing a crowd to panic.

    Edit - looked it up, goes back to Schenck v. United States, which basically states that the context of otherwise protected speech can render it criminal. The case wasn’t about shouting fire in a theater, but it produced that example to illustrate their reasoning.

      • Sterile_Technique@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Huh. I wonder if any injuries that occured would fall under that. Like if someone yelled fire and you got trampled by a panicked crowd and broke a few bones… would yelling fire in that case be assault?

        Initial post stands - charge his ass! …but now more from curiosity to see what the courts would do with it than anything else.

          • Mouselemming@sh.itjust.works
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            1 year ago

            And someone else was shot by law enforcement because they tried to follow those orders. (The fact she wasn’t innocent doesn’t excuse the instigator of her death)

        • thepianistfroggollum@lemmynsfw.com
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          1 year ago

          No, because the words aren’t intended to incite lawless acts.

          But, falsely pulling a fire alarm and saying words are two different things, and he can and should be charged for it.

      • 【J】【u】【s】【t】【Z】@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        This is not at all correct. The issue in Schenk wasn’t whether you could or could not falsely shout fire in a crowded theater.

        You may not falsely yell fire in a crowded theater. Doing so is a criminal breach of peace.

        Schenk and Brandenberg are incitement cases. Not being able to falsely yell fire in a crowded theater is axiomatic proof that the farmer’s intent wasn’t to ban limits on speech that obviously serves no valid free speech purpose, such as falsely shouting fire in a crowded theater.

        You absolutely have the right to truly yell fire in a crowded theater, though no duty to do so!

    • BuckyVanBuren@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      No, the case was about protesting war.

      So, whenever you use this trope, you continue to support the idea that protesting war is criminal and protesters should be imprisoned.

      • ViciousTangerine@lemmings.world
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        1 year ago

        I don’t think most people who hear the “fire in a crowded theater” line are going to think it’s about protesting war. It’s an example when speech can have an immediate harmful effect that seems to have a lot more relevance to the discussion of limitations on expression.

        • BuckyVanBuren@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          No, it is about people fundamentally misunderstanding the case and continuing to misuse a paraphrasing of a dictum, or non-binding statement, from Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. Incorrectly, acting as if it was a an actually point if law.

          If used correctly, then it would be about protesting war. But people rarely understand what was said under Schenck v. United States, nor do they understand that it was overturned.

          Brandenburg v. Ohio changed the standard to which speecg speech could be prosecuted only when it posed a danger of “imminent lawless action,” a formulation which is sometimes said to reflect Holmes reasoning as more fully explicated in his Abrams dissent, rather than the common law of attempts explained in Schenck.

          Fire in a theater is meaningless and useless.