What’s the policy for advocating violence?

[Daytripper]

What rule does advocating violence fall under?

 

[alethiophile]

Usually rule 1.

If you see a post that you think breaks the rules, you should just report it. You don't need to look up which rule you think it breaks -- giving your reasoning in plain English is fine.

 

[daniel_gudman]

To be super pedantic I would think advocating violence against a particular person violates Rule 1, whereas advocating violence against a group is probably a Rule 8 violation instead / as well. Since advocating violence against a group probably counts as political advocacy.

 

[alethiophile]

It would be a case-by-case determination. But, again, that's not all that important on the user's end.

 

[Stanley_Jeb]

Wait, how doesn't that go against Rule 3?
Isn't advocating for violence straight up illegal (speech that incites lawless action)?

 

[daniel_gudman]

Isn't advocating for violence straight up illegal (speech that incites lawless action)?

Click to shrink...

I dunno about other polities but in the United States at least it's "incitement to imminent lawless action", you have to be encouraging someone specific to commit a specific violent crime right then and there, and it has to be "likely".

So it's basically impossible that anyone could possibly commit incitement (in a "legal culpability" sense) posting on a forum board.

But like yeah, the legal standard that constrains the deployment of State Power against "speech" is a different category than what's going on here, which is more like, a private association setting terms of membership, or something like that.

 

[Tabby_Overlord]

Stop advocating and do it.

 

[Tranquil Zebra]

So, I believe that there could be several ways of breaking forum rules by advocating violence. The obvious example of "punch a nazi" would probably fall under rule 8, I believe, while "you are a nazi, someone should punch you" would probably fall under rule 1 for being hateful. "X is a nazi, here's the dox, someone punch X quickly!" would probably fall under rule 3 as flat out illegal, if there exists the probability of imminent harm to X.

Saying something like "Congress should pass a law proscribing nazism, and the punishment shall be punching" is probably so removed from current politics and so absurd as to be construed as a joke, and might in fact be an allowed way to advocate violence against a group. I would still advise against advocating violence towards anyone, as even though there might be principled arguments for visiting violence upon someone, QQ is very much not the right place to make those arguments.