Arizona proposed anti-trolling bill ineffective, unconstitutional

 

A troll is a mythical, cave-dwelling creature generally portrayed as a very ugly dwarf or giant. However, a more recent connotation of troll has arisen, an individual who attempts to anger others through the Internet, usually by inflammatory comments and rude postings in online forums and chats. Until now, the government has not taken any action against trollers, but trollers beware, continuing to annoy online forums may soon land you in jail anywhere from six months to 25 years.  

If House Bill 2549, unofficially known as Arizona’s anti-trolling law, is passed, everyone in the U.S. with online relations to Arizona residents will need to be wary of what they post, tweet, chat or say online. With the passage of this law, the playful and occasionally annoying banter among friends may soon have unreasonable consequences. 

The Arizona legislature believes that by updating a telephone harassment law to encompass all electronic devices, the amount of online harassment and bullying will decrease. The modified law states that anyone who uses an electronic device to annoy, harass, threaten, intimidate or offend another could be charged and sent to jail.

The bill is laughably unclear. What is considered harassment and offensive to one individual can be perfectly normal to another. Where is the border between joking with friends and being downright cruel? 

The broad definition of what the bill considers unlawful would lead to excessive lawsuits, since anyone who feels offended by another’s comment would be at full liberty to pursue legal action. 

It would be foolhardy for the national government to approve of or allow Arizona to pass such a law. 

While students may joke about the potential law, considering it inconsequential in the rest of the U.S, they are ignoring the more malicious threat that it poses. Aside from simply preventing anyone from ever calling someone “stupid” or “an idiot,” even as a joke, HB 2549 also represses fundamental constitutional rights.

The First Amendment states that the government cannot pass any law “abridging the freedom of speech.” So, if someone wanted to scream “I hate the U.S. government” they are free to do so.

With the anti-trolling law, posting “I hate the U.S. government” on a blog could lead to a lawsuit from a particularly patriotic person and, however unlikely, a potential conviction and jail sentence.

Allowing the oppression of freedom of speech in the form of Arizona’s anti-trolling law would open the door for future censorship laws. 

Additionally, the bill is completely superfluous. There are already multiple laws in place to prevent cyberbullying and online harassment that are much more effective than the law that Arizona has proposed.

Former laws such as the United States Code 879, which criminalizes making threats online, give limits on what can be deemed as harassment. However, without a clear definition of what content is insulting enough to be considered a crime, HB 2549 will never be able to properly counter online harassment and bullying.

Thankfully, most of the U.S. sees the foolishness of the law. Even Arizona is starting to wake up. Ted Vogt, a member of Arizona’s House of Representatives and the sponsor of the HB 2549, has stopped the bill from progressing to the Arizona Senate.

Currently, the bill is on hiatus, and if Vogt and his co-sponsor Vic Williams have any sense, they will modify the bill drastically before attempting to bring it up for consideration again.