Internet Trolling could become illegal and punishable by law under House Bill.

Watch Your Comments: Arizona Law Could Punish Trolling With 25 Years


We’d all prefer that the internet was a more civil place. For every well-reasoned, considerate comment out there, there a dozen violent, all-caps homophobic rants. But it’s hard to do anything about it. Unfortunately, part of freedom of speech on the Internet seems to be the freedom of huge numbers of people to be jerks.

Arizona, however, which doesn’t have the best reputation for protecting civil liberties, is doing something about it. The legislature recently passed House Bill 2549, which uses broad language that could turn a troublingly large swath of online chatter into a class 1 misdemeanor, punishable by up to 25 years in jail. It reads:

“It is unlawful for any person, with intent to terrify, intimidate, threaten, harass, annoy or offend, to use any electronic or digital device and use any obscene, lewd or profane language or suggest any lewd or lascivious act, or threaten to inflict physical harm to the person or property of any person.”

The Comic Book Legal Defense Fund argues that because the law is not limited to covering one-on-one communications, it could potentially open up the entire world of comments, forums, blog posts and more to criminal scrutiny. Gizmodo notes that because Reddit isn’t exactly a physical location, the law could become concerning to people outside of Arizona as well.

[link to www.forbes.com]