Internet Intoxication As A Legal Defense?

from the time-to-throw-up dept

A lawyer is thinking of using "internet intoxication" as a legal defense in a case of a teenaged guy threatening someone in a chat room. The claim is that the guy was so "intoxicated" by the internet, he thought it was all virtual. It wasn't a real threat, it was a "virtual threat". Yeah, I'm sure that's a winning strategy.
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  • identicon
    Ryan, 15 Jan 2001 @ 1:56pm

    Not so silly...

    It would sort of fly with me because a few years ago I remember going to some chat rooms that were basically war rooms (guys would just start fights and then eventually nuke each other, i.e. cause their computers to crash). I'm sure none of the guys in those rooms actually took the threats seriously but if it had been in any less anonymous medium they could have been precieved as serious threats.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


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