A Man Makes a Tutorial on How to Punch a Nazi that Gets Him Banned on Twitter
Pictured: A screenshot of Thor Harris demonstrating a proper punch
Twitter is the one social media platform where almost anything is allowed. They lack the same strict guidelines that Facebook and Instagram have, allowing for an array of interesting tweets. The guidelines they do have, however, are typically about violence: don’t show or talk about hurting someone or your account could be briefly suspended. Now how violent does the tweet have to be for the account to get suspended?
Indie artist Thor Harris knows the answer to that. Back in January 2020, modern day neo-Nazi was punched in the face. The following February Harris tweeted a video he had made called “How to Punch a Nazi” which went viral. In the video he stated “don’t do it” and “peaceful protests are better”. Twitter suspended his account and removed the video for encouraging violence toward another person or group.
When back allowed on Twitter, Harris said the video was a joke, making fun of something that actually happened a month before. He wasn’t mad about his suspension because he was back on quickly and there was no other legal trouble so the event was more funny than anything.
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Questions:
1. Did Harris break any laws by tweeting a video about “How to Punch A Nazi”? If so what possible laws did he or could he break?
2. How could breaking Twitter guidelines turn into a legal offense where police could get involved and the case be taken to court? Explain.
3. Should social media guidelines be taken seriously even if breaking them doesn’t result in breaking the law? Why or why not?
4. Are there any Nevada specific social media laws?
Be sure to provide full explanations for your answers. For more details, you can read the article this piece was sourced from here:
Contributed by Saralynn Lindsay
