I know this isn't brand new, but it's still unsettling.

http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/07/09/texas-19-year-old-in-prison-for-sarcastic-facebook-post/

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/justin-carter-facebook-teen-bail_n_3582251.html

http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/02/tech/social-media/facebook-threat-carter/index.html

For me, it's obvious not to type things like the teen posted, but I'm sure that I've typed other things that the government doesn't like.

I guess we should start being afraid. What sayeth thou?

It's no secret that we're under surveillance but its sad that its on so large of a scale that it infringes the rights of the people.

I hope it makes you Internet "tough guys" think twice because prison is not an Internet forum nor an online game; take my word for it.

Good thing I'm neither immature nor sarcastic. Posts like these are very stupid, but they shouldn't get you locked up.

Unless stupidity was a crime...

As in the big NSA thread, this guy was not caught by government surveillance. In this case, he posted it on his Facebook and some over-zealous person reported him.

Yeah you can tell he was being sarcastic... But what he said was a bit disturbing, so I'm not really surprised someone reported it.

In the uk there's been a thing for 2 years now where some guys flight was cancelled and he posted on twitter 'get it sorted out or I'm blowing you sky high' or something like that, and he's just been fighting the justice system since...... Oh if the time and energy was put into real criminals eh

honestly, i have no sympathy for people who post publicly about "plans" to kill people, sarcastic or not... it's no different than the anonymous bomb threats that get called in to schools all too often already, which is also a felony

Cant just be putting words on my thumb. Never mentioned the government; maybe "watching" would've been a simpler term for folks.

Good. That'#s all I can say.

For too long idiots have felt they're immune from repercussions for saying stupid, offensive and downright disturbing things on the internet. Perhaps public shaming of some sort would have been better than jail, but people need to learn that the internet is not an invincibility shield.

For too long trolls have had their way. There's a story over here at the minute. A schoolgirl driven to kill herself by cyberbullies, well those same bullies have apparently now turned their attention to her sister. Sickening.

4,000 suicides a year by young advlts. 100 attempts for every suicide.

Something has to give.

There seems to have been a spate of this sort of thing lately. Although what he said was stupid and in bad taste, that pales compared to the overreaction of the authorities: the people behind that decision should be ashamed of their idiocy, and perhaps made to answer for wasting a huge amount of public money and resources that should have been spent on fighting actual criminals.

I'm not saying that people should simply get away with anything if there's actual victims, such as stalking and bullying etc, but this? It just seems as if they've gone after a soft target because it's easier than dealing with real problems.

Crap, I made the mistake of reading some of the comments at the end of the articles. I needed those IQ points for work tomorrow. When will I learn?

Kids say this kind of crap online a bajillion times per day. Stupid and crass, yes, but obviously not serious. The fact that these "authorities" can't tell the difference between a kid being a silly, angsty kid and a real threat is chilling.

Reading the MSNBC article is particularly interesting. Apparently, the person who reported the post, reported it to Canadian Crime Stoppers, who give out cash rewards to tips that lead to an arrest. By itself this is perhaps not so objectionable, but combined with heavy-handed law enforcement, it is worrisome.

The other worrying thing is that the state apparently thought that eight years in prison was an appropriate sentence. Now, we only have Carter's friends and family to go by, but the suggestion seems to be that he's not got any latent psychological issues, nor is there any additional evidence to suggest that he's more likely to commit a terrorist act. From what I can tell, nobody found any weapons or any plans or anything like that. His "intent" to commit terrorism seems to consist solely in his facebook post.

Contrary to what earlier posters suggested, none of this is to deny that there may be good reasons to prosecute people who make harmful and threatening posts on facebook.

I think that there probably should be some repercussions when people post things that frighten people in public forums, sure. Felony-level repercussions? Not unless there's evidence of an actual danger...no way. That's just an absurd reaction that really paints the law enforcement agencies involved as incompetents.

Shouldn't joke about it.

The women should have learnt the meaning of "JK" and "lol"

The police are idiots for not realising things said over games are rarely ever a real world issue... if anyone that threatened [censored] or murder over a game was jailed we'd be down about half of all the players in big games.

This wasn't really the case of the Gov spying, more the stupid act of a women player, who somehow found out where the boy lived and called police.

On the upside, with America's Happy-Go-Sue culture he can just sue everyone involved once he's free - unless the courts are retar...oh wait.

Offensive? Really?
No wonder the world is so pc now.... Forget freedom of speech, you may *offend* somebody. As in not harm someone, just say something they dislike. Boohoo.

"Crime Stoppers pays out rewards of up to $2,000 to anyone whose tip leads to an arrest."

Ok now this is starting to make slightly more sense to me.

You know, during the dark ages over here a witch hunter was allowed to claim the possessions of any witch he found. Since he got no other income it was in his own best interest to find quite a good number of witches.

This has got to stop immediately.

You don't pay people for things like this, are they mad? Do they know the slightest thing about people or history?

To stop the witch hunt, simply quit paying people for finding witches.

This is not just because he was immature... He said something like "killing kindergarten kids and eating their hearts"... It is pretty messed up to even think that up. By your topic title I thought he made a fart joke.

His comment was not meant to incite terror since it was clearly sarcastic., therefore, it's not terrorism. However, I'm sure calling in a bomb threat, fake or not, is inciting terror.

There's a big difference between those.

I have a facebook, but my parents are on it, so I keep all my immature [censored] to messaging. Because I would rather get arrested.

How can you be sure he was sarcastic?

I think it is good to react to threats like these because even if one of a thousnd is real, it may still stop that one.

What compels people to make such comments? Come on man... a kidnergarden??! Why even joke like that? :/... He deserved that.

I meant the really offensive stuff.

Not the 'you're an idiot' kind of insult that gets thrown around. But the kind of stuff that gets thrown around referring to sixuality, race, religious beliefs etc, That kind of thing.

Likewise the sort of thing that has -several times within this year alone- driven some teenager to commit suicide or has renewed a grieving family's pain because some moron started sending messages pretending to be their dead child.

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the police shouldn't follow up on mass murder threats (even if they seem sarcastic). The issue is whether in this particular case, an eight year prison sentence is warranted.