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This Guy's Facebook Rants Put Him In Prison, And The Supreme Court Will Hear...
• http://www.businessinsider.com-The Supreme Court is going to hear a free speech case today that will determine whether a then-27-year-old's violent, rap-inspired Facebook posts should have landed him behind bars.
The court will hear the case of Anthony Douglas Elonis, who was convicted of violating a federal law that bars making interstate threats to harm people.
Elonis' string of damning Facebook rants came after his wife of seven years left him and took their two kids with her in May 2010, according to the petition asking the Supreme Court to hear the case.
Elonis made questionable Facebook posts about his former employer (an amusement park that fired him), followed by posts about his estranged wife, and then a post in which he appeared to threaten elementary school kids. That last post prompted the FBI to start monitoring him, which in turn inspired a derogatory post from Elonis about the "Little Agent Lady" who came to his door.
Elonis argues that his posts — many of which were in rap form — weren't actually meant to threaten their subjects, and that he had a First Amendment right to make these statements. He has support from a number of free speech groups, including the ACLU.
"The inherently impersonal nature of online communication makes such messages inherently susceptible to misinterpretation," his lawyers wrote in his petition.