Not sure what this is all about but would be interested in hearing all the facts to this story.

Here's a link to an article on Techdirt with more on the story. They also have a link to a spreadsheet that seems to contain most of the offending Tweets, no I didn't read through them all.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150716/00572731657/canadian-court-ponders-if-disagreement-twitter-constitutes-criminal-harassment.shtml
Based on just reading the article this all sounds like a huge waste of the court's time and the public's money.

When I first read her article, I almost dismissed it immediately because of Christie Blatchford, who is a terrible person/journalist. It's one of those things where you have to read and do your own research, because she's been so biased in the past. I'm actually surprised she didn't put her own terrible spin on this one.

The verdict comes down in October, we'll see what happens after that.

she quite clearly put her own spin on this article. i don't know anything about this case and therefore don't have an opinion on it but this piece was heavily editorialized.

Aren't they (the plaintiffs) also guilty of harassing the young video game maker then?
I bet this won't go anywhere. Feeling harassed isn't actionable.

Yeah I didn't get any real information out of this. I want to view and respond to bobknights videos because I see value in experiencing viewpoints other than my own, but its difficult when the format feels about the same as someones youtube opinion. "Opinions" are helpful for finding your own point of view, but they're inherently worthless as news.

Oh yeah, I was talking about the video. The article is terrible. =(

By their own standards? Absolutely.

And even of themselves ganging-up and harassing the guy on trial.

But logic... it doesn't work in a neo-feminists's brain.

None of this has much to do with feminism, or disagreements, or for that matter anti-feminism. It's a question of whether public/semi-public social media should be treated the same as, for example, your phone, or your door. Calling somebody repeatedly (and I mean repeatedly) against their wishes can qualify as harassment in most countries. Coming to their residence or place of work most definitely can. Even if the content of the calls is not threatening, it can still be harassment, which is how you get a restraining order in place. So, regardless of whether you 'disagree with feminists' or not, the question is if you can successfully sue someone for harassment if they take steps to spam your social media repeatedly, against your wishes. The fact that the plaintiffs call themselves feminists and the defendant calls them dumb cunts [edited for accuracy:] hateful bitches is, in this description, an unnecessary smoke screen to feed the myth of MRA victimization on the internet.

In my country you probably couldn't sue successfully for this, and I doubt you could in Canada either. I also think the plaintiffs seem like absolute fucking shits on twitter and I hope they lose. Possibly they could get a limited restraining order against him, though that might require a bit of sophistication on the part of the court to enforce through twitter.

Also, whether or not the plaintiffs were also harassing him doesn't automatically invalidate their suit, but it might rightfully be a mitigating circumstance for his behavior - either because it demonstrates that they were actively engaging with him (even if indirectly), and didn't actually fear for their 'psychosocial security', or because it demonstrates that they were creating a real negative public impact on him, and he had a valid reason for trying to engage them in the way he did.

I don't know why internet lawyering is such a dirty word, it's so much fun.

1) Not if the specific individuals didn't actually repeatedly communicate with him, which it seems like they didn't - they just prompted a large number of people to be aware of and possibly contact him. It could possibly be labeled conspiracy to harass or incitement to harass, but that's not necessarily an actionable offense. He'd probably have more luck suing for defamation.

2) 'Feeling harassed' is super-actionable; it's the defining prerequisite for the crime of harassment to have taken place. As long as you fear for your safety, and that can be your psychological or social safety, you're technically within the scope of the broadly written statute. It's most likely written that broadly to ensure that obviously harassing behavior is not missed on a technicality, and courts, as well as plaintiffs, are expected to exercise common sense.

I also bet it won't go anywhere after the court of first instance.

If you read nothing but the tweets, sure: just seems like a guy who didn't agree with this woman and kept tweeting at her for months after she blocked him and asked him to stop... Part of that is because a lot of the most offending tweets have been deleted from his account by him. The deletion of the comments is mentioned here: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/toronto/man-charged-with-harassment-for-twitter-messages/article5534782/

But that also leaves out the fact that, after he soured and continually tweeted at her calling her awful/misandrist/ etc, he also started showing up at events she was at, photographing her place of work, and stalking her. A friend of hers said as such: https://twitter.com/anne_theriault/status/621678088829710337

I don't use Twitter so I was wondering how she continued to get Tweets after she blocked him. The Globe article claims that her friends got messages from him and then send them along to her, even after she blocked him? I'm wondering why her friends didn't simply block him as well, wouldn't that make her friends complicit?
This just makes no sense whatsoever. If he was stalking her in the real world as well however, that puts it on a new level.

Hmmm... none of the articles linked by Theriault or others mention physical stalking taking place, nor do any quotes from legal representation for either side. That might be a case of the media wanting to lead with the twitter angle, but I'd have thought the plaintiffs would put the physical stalking front and center, since it's easier for the legal system to grasp and likely to strengthen the case for them being in fear.

Since the case is ongoing, not sure if all of the details about the extent of the harassment has come out, but the article someone else mentioned (https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20150716/00572731657/canadian-court-ponders-if-disagreement-twitter-constitutes-criminal-harassment.shtml) has a link to a spreadsheet of the undeleted tweets between them. I read through and see a few early mentions of them meeting in person for business reasons, then him asking to drive her places a lot, and (after he aours and becomes more antagonistic) mentioning going to an event she was at.

I think the reason most articles aren't necessarily reporting the physical stalking is that part is its not widely known and seems to be from reports of those that know the woman and the angle of online harassment against women is more of a "hot topic" now.

I've also noticed most of the articles are directly parroting the guys defense without any counterpoint from anyone representating the complainant. Which I'm sure the defense isn't going to bring up the physical stalking accusations.

The "angry lady wants man jailed for disagreeing" narrative just seems like such a blatant oversimplification that only aids the side talking to the media and surely is what the defense wants people to remember.

Is it just me, or is feminism on the rise in Canada? Every other feminism/anti-feminism video I see on the web seems to come from there.

Here's a good article as well, it also confirms how terrible a person Christie Blatchford is.

http://canadalandshow.com/article/christie-blatchford-worst

This is one of the reasons why I hate internet feuds - everybody involved seems to feel that it's not only ok but necessary to give their point of view in as one-sided, hyperbolic a way as possible. Like the Reddit CEO resignation, with some describing it as a clueless venture capitalist (Pao) ripping out the infrastructure heart of reddit until a popular uprising managed to stop her, and others calling it a white power assault on a woman of color (Pao).

The Techdirt article seems like a reasonable enough take on this situation; I'm not sure the friend testimony adds much. I am happy to learn of, and a little worried by, the Canadian vaguery of a peace bond. It sounds a lot like an asbo, which is also pretty icky.

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