Free Speech and Free Threats

When the subject of free speech is brought up in defense of a statement, it's often said that free speech is only free if there are no restrictions whatsoever; that all lines are arbitrary, and so none should be drawn. This is naive. There is a line; exactly one line, and it is anything but arbitrary. And that is the line between free speech and violent threat.

Let's start by going through a related concept. What is intent? In basic terms, intent is to attempt to do something in the full knowledge that you are doing it and with a choice not to do it that you are knowingly ignoring. Sometimes this knowledge of what you are doing doesn't match what you're actually doing; in which case your intent is different from your action. Intent carries moral weight; to intend to act in a way that negatively impacts others is immoral, but to intend something else that happens to cause negative impact without your prior knowledge that it would do so is an accident, and not immoral.

What is a threat? There is a legal definition of the term, but just as ‘free speech’ has a broader extra-legal definition, so does ‘threat’. A threat is to intentionally make a threatening statement. A threatening statement is a statement that makes people fear that you will physically harm them or encourage someone else to physically harm them. Put these together with the definition of ‘intent’ above and you have:
A threat is to make a statement knowing full well that people will feel physically endangered by it.

Now let's apply it to an example:

[img]ttps://pbs.twimg.com/media/DBHPTmuWAAIgqqz.jpg[/img]
Comedian Kathy Griffin recently tweeted a shock video of her holding up a bloody severed head of the sitting President; this tweet was numbered 1, and the second tweet, numbered 2, claimed “OBVIOUSLY, I do not condone ANY violence by my fans or others to anyone, ever!”
The question is, was this a threat? Let's apply the definition.
First, did this statement make people fear physical harm by either Griffin or someone who followed her? Yes, absolutely; the disclaimer in the second tweet does nothing to diminish the horror of the image and the blatant implications of violence, and even if the Trump family themselves did not feel threatened by it, Trump is a representative of a large movement, and implying violence toward a movement's representative is implying violence toward anyone who identifies with the movement.
Second, did Griffin make this statement in full knowledge that people would take it that way, and proceed to do it anyway? In other words, was the fear caused by the image intended? Her disclaimer tweet makes it clear that, yes, she knew ahead of time exactly how people would take this. That she didn't want people to take it that way doesn't change that she knew they would, and that she did it anyway.
In conclusion, Kathy Griffin made and posted the video with full knowledge that people would take it as threatening, and therefore it was a threat.

We can and should draw a line between statements that encourage violence and those that do not. Freedom of speech is for encouraging discourse, not anarchy.