EFF Tells Louisiana Court Satire Is Still Protected Speech Even If The Government Doesn't Get The Joke
from the an-inability-to-get-a-joke-doesn't-make-it-any-less-funny dept
Last summer, as anti-police brutality protests were in full swing, a Lafayette man posted an obviously bogus Antifa call to action on his "cajUUn Memes" Facebook page. The announcement called for "cajun comrades" to rise up and engage in a takeover of the River Ranch neighborhood.
Anyone with half a brain reading the post would have known it was a joke. It contained references to marijuana (the group was to meet at 4:20 pm) and asked that only "card carrying members" of Antifa show up. There was also the line: "Arms optional. Legs encouraged."
For some reason, neither the mayor nor the local police department got the joke. The mayor issued an official statement about the city's "zero-tolerance policy for threats to life and property" and a police spokesperson said the PD would be monitoring the event despite there being "no credible evidence" the planned takeover of River Ranch would take place.
The day came and went without any Antifa uprising taking place. That should have been the end of it. It wasn't. Two months later, the Lafayette Parish government sued John Merrifield, the man behind the joke post.
The lawsuit, filed in the 15th Judicial District in Lafayette, alleges John Merrifield cost the city-parish government money when he created two fake Facebook events that said ANTIFA would show up in the city's high-end River Ranch community and the Acadiana Mall.
The lawsuit seeks an unspecified amount of damages of less than $75,000.
"I think he should bear the brunt of some of the costs, if not all of the costs, that his actions cost the taxpayers," Mayor-President Josh Guillory said on his Thursday morning radio show.
Obviously a ridiculous take on what happened. Some monitoring by the PD occurred and Mayor Guillory got suckered into issuing a statement decrying a bogus Facebook event that was quite obviously a joke. According to the Mayor, some overtime money was spent. But that should be on him and the police department. There was no credible threat according to the PD itself, so any extra expenditures were clearly unjustified.
Merrifield's response to the lawsuit was less than contrite.
"Fool you once, shame on me. Fool you twice, shame on you," he said. "I’m not going to apologize to the citizens of Lafayette who were gullible enough to fall for a satire event created by a comedy meme page run by a satirist and comedian twice."
So, the parish took the man to court. And, you would assume, that would have been the end of it once a judge had a chance to review the government's ridiculous claims. But, no, this is Louisiana, where laws are weird and law enforcement easily duped.
A pair of fake Antifa rally event pages posted on Facebook by comedian John Merrifield are not protected by the First Amendment, Judge Ed Broussard of the 15th Judicial District Court in Lafayette ruled Monday. He allowed the lawsuit for damages, filed in September by Lafayette Consolidated Government, to proceed.
[...]
Broussard said Merrifield's "First Amendment right was not applicable" to the events because they "imply illegal activity or violence," referencing a state law that prohibits false statements that prompt an emergency response, which Adley argued the posts violated.
This insane ruling is being appealed. And now Merrifield has the EFF on his side. An amicus brief [PDF] filed by the EFF points out the obvious: speech doesn't become less protected just because the government didn't get the joke.
Fake Facebook events have been a part of online discourse ever since Facebook rolled out this feature. Faux events have placed mega-celebrities at mundane locations (Drake performing live at the Cheesecake Factory; Third Eye Blind performing at Lenscrafters).
The fake events also tend to pop up in response to newsworthy events.
[P]rank events have been used in a variety of situations, such as to lighten the stress and tension that accompanies an approaching natural disaster. Hurricane Florence in 2018, spawned several such satirical events. A musical instrument store in Cary, North Carolina "hosted" a pretend "Blow Your Saxophone at Hurricane Florence" event on September 18, 2018. Another user created a "Tell Hurricane Florence to Stop" event, scheduled for the "Atlantic Ocean." There were also events to "Boycott Hurricane Florence," "Take Hurricane Florence and PUSH it Somewhere ELSE!," "Bark at Hurricane Florence So It Will Go Away," "Yell 'Fake News' At Hurricane Florence," and, combining social media activities, "Angry Tweet at Hurricane Florence."
While some parody and satire may be more easily identified, failing to comprehend something is satirical is a failure of the reader, not legitimate subject matter for a lawsuit.
Merrifield's speech is clearly protected, says the EFF. And the state judge who ruled otherwise is wrong.
Although there are situations in which facetious speech may be actionable, it cannot support a legal claim that requires an affirmative intent to reach a harmful result. Under the First Amendment,"an actual subjective intent to produce future criminal consequences is required to transform 'protected' into 'unprotected' and legitimately proscribable speech." City of Baton Rouge v. Ross, 654 So.2d 1311, 1337 (1995). As this Court has held, speech is not incitement unless it was "directed or intended toward the goal of producing imminent lawless conduct," and does not extend to that speech which unintentionally inspires others to such imminent lawlessness. Byers v. Edmonson, 826 So. 2d 551, 555-56 (La. Ct. App. 2002). Like the copycat cases addressed in Byers, facetious speech does not support any permissible inference that the speaker intended to assist criminal conduct.
Anyone who legitimately thought a call for Cajun, card-carrying, Antifa members to rise up and storm an exclusive neighborhood was a credible threat probably works for the Lafayette Parish government. The posting wasn't exactly subtle. Just because the mayor didn't get the joke and the PD decided to blow payroll on "monitoring" an admittedly incredible "threat" doesn't mean they get to walk over the First Amendment in an attempt to make a jokester literally pay for the Parish's screwup.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: 1st amendment, antifa, free speech, john merrifield, jokes, lafayette, louisiana, police brutality, satire
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
No matter how obvious satire is, there will always be someone who doesn't get it.
I once saw somebody respond seriously to a commenter who described himself as a graduate of Smilin' Jim's Unaccredited Forth Grade Acamedy.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
'Our fragile egos are worth at least $75,000!'
The only people wasting taxpayers money would seem to be the local police who apparently spent seventy-five thousand dollars watching a bogus event take place that even they admit wasn't a threat, so if anyone should be footing that bill it should be whoever ordered that.
Of course I'd say it's pretty obvious that this has less to do with 'wasting taxpayer money' and more to do with punishing someone for making the mayor and local police look like fools for taking serious such an obvious joke, making the attempted fine nothing less than petty vindictiveness by some gullible people who happen to have power, something that hopefully whatever judge who takes up the appeal will see through.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Too real
The hallmark of good satire is that you can't tell whether the author is serious or not, and it leads to a ridiculous outcome. Sadly, the concept of staging a flash mob on Facebook is no longer a ridiculous outcome, but rather a real possibility.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Too real
It's the same with irony, if you are really good at it, a lot of people will think you are a blithering idiot which just confirms Poe's law.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I'm assuming that a significant argument in the eyes of Lafayette is that Antifa is a threat and terrorist organization. Louisiana is an open carry with no permit state.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Louisiana
Where the State Supreme Court decided this.
When a satirist does it on a satire web page, it is funny. When the Louisiana State Supreme Court does it, it is just plain horrifying.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Mega-celebrities?
"mega-celebrities at mundane locations (Drake... Third Eye Blind)"
Who is Drake? I have heard of Third Eye Blind.
A mega-celebrity is Mike Tyson, Barbara Streisand, or Robert Redford. You may or may not like them, but everyone knows who they are.
Drake does not qualify.
(yeah, get off my lawn!)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
LA Hypocrisy much?
anyone want to lay wages were that exact same post to mention a low income neighborhood, as opposed to the previous "exclusive neighborhood," that there would have been NO change to the City's, PD's nor anyone else's activities.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: with phone-to-phone commincation
who is in the middle now
[ link to this | view in thread ]
I get the feeling many in this comment section wouldn't feel this way if it was someone making a joke about Proud Boys doing the same thing.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
It's almost like context is a thing, and it's disingenuous to try to equate an actual terrorist organization with a body count, to a nonexistent one.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: 'Our fragile egos are worth at least $75,000!'
"...even they admit wasn't a threat..."
But, oooh, look at all the overtime pay they garnered for following Hizzoner's silly-ass directive!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Our parents and great-grandparents who fought in WW2 against the Nazis, that great generation who we could call true anti-fascists, are rolling in their graves over the whole Antifa stupidity we're dealing with today.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
"the whole Antifa stupidity"
The term Antifa is now meaningless.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
Ignoring the congressional security that got to walk in their grandfather's antifascist footsteps and actually shoot a Nazi.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re:
"No matter how obvious satire is, there will always be someone who doesn't get it."
Poe's Law.
It's just that in the US there are 74 million people so bereft of common sense and basic logic that it has, today, become the norm that one or more of these benighted morons will be found squatting over whatever forum you're on and making wild claims in apparent earnest about how the invisible shadow ninja queer brigade of Antifa will be kidnapping and selling your children to the satanist trafficking ring Hillary runs out of the basement of some pizza parlor.
Or how the Kenyan Muslim will be promoting his minion to the US presidency - by using black magic to vanish millions of ballots from underneath the noses of republican election monitors who, because of his mind control powers didn't notice a damn thing.
Or how the liberal chemtrail communist conspiracy of the NWO is furthering its nefarious plot against Truth, Justice and the American Way by...making frogs gay, apparently.
These inspired geniuses, bastions of "conservative" ideology and staunch patriots then turn right around and applaud - in earnest - the mob which stormed the national capitol, beat two policemen to death, and pooped on the damn floor.
The reason we don't "get" satire any more is because no matter how insane, infantile, or divorced from observable reality an assertion is, odds are good there are 74 million broken dimbulbs out there truly believing it's honest truth.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Re:
Just a small clarification but 74 million does make it common sense.
Still doesn't make it good sense mind you.
As oft repeatedly told to deaf ears
Common sense is not the same as good sense.
There is a difference.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Accountable
So the Mayor and PDZ Chief are called out for being idiots but what about the Fascist sitting on the bench? It wasn't a minor misinterpretation of the law. It was a gross ignorance of the constitution in favor of personal prejudice. A judge that blatantly ignores the constitution could and should be treated as the traitor to the people that they are and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Re: Mega-celebrities?
"Among the world's best-selling music artists, with over 170 million records sold, Drake is ranked as the highest-certified digital singles artist in the United States by the RIAA. He has won four Grammy Awards, six American Music Awards, a record 27 Billboard Music Awards, two Brit Awards and three Juno Awards. Drake also holds several Billboard chart records; he has the most top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, the most charted songs (209) of any artists ever on the Billboard Hot 100, the most simultaneously charted Hot 100 songs in a single week (27), the most continuous time on the Hot 100 (431 weeks), and the most Hot 100 debuts in a week (22). He also has the most number-one singles on the R&B/Hip-Hop Airplay, Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs, Hot Rap Songs, and Rhythmic Airplay."
Sounds pretty mega to me.
I doubt there is anyone who is known by everyone. In fact it would probably not be difficult to find people under 30 who have never heard of Tyson or Redford, and only know Streisand because of Mike Masnick. You think they are mega celebrities because they were hugely famous when you were young, whereas among teens and twentysomethings, Drake is currently far better known.
[ link to this | view in thread ]