Pick a court case that involves social media and research it. Then answer the following questions:
What was the case about? Write a brief overview of the court case.
Which laws were considered broken? Describe which legal issues were brought into question.
Do you think the case violated any laws? Please explain why or why you did not agree with the court ruling.
Sample solution
Dante Alighieri played a critical role in the literature world through his poem Divine Comedy that was written in the 14th century. The poem contains Inferno, Purgatorio, and Paradiso. The Inferno is a description of the nine circles of torment that are found on the earth. It depicts the realms of the people that have gone against the spiritual values and who, instead, have chosen bestial appetite, violence, or fraud and malice. The nine circles of hell are limbo, lust, gluttony, greed and wrath. Others are heresy, violence, fraud, and treachery. The purpose of this paper is to examine the Dante’s Inferno in the perspective of its portrayal of God’s image and the justification of hell.
In this epic poem, God is portrayed as a super being guilty of multiple weaknesses including being egotistic, unjust, and hypocritical. Dante, in this poem, depicts God as being more human than divine by challenging God’s omnipotence. Additionally, the manner in which Dante describes Hell is in full contradiction to the morals of God as written in the Bible. When god arranges Hell to flatter Himself, He commits egotism, a sin that is common among human beings (Cheney, 2016). The weakness is depicted in Limbo and on the Gate of Hell where, for instance, God sends those who do not worship Him to Hell. This implies that failure to worship Him is a sin.
God is also depicted as lacking justice in His actions thus removing the godly image. The injustice is portrayed by the manner in which the sodomites and opportunists are treated. The opportunists are subjected to banner chasing in their lives after death followed by being stung by insects and maggots. They are known to having done neither good nor bad during their lifetimes and, therefore, justice could have demanded that they be granted a neutral punishment having lived a neutral life. The sodomites are also punished unfairly by God when Brunetto Lattini is condemned to hell despite being a good leader (Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). While he commited sodomy, God chooses to ignore all the other good deeds that Brunetto did.
Finally, God is also portrayed as being hypocritical in His actions, a sin that further diminishes His godliness and makes Him more human. A case in point is when God condemns the sin of egotism and goes ahead to commit it repeatedly. Proverbs 29:23 states that “arrogance will bring your downfall, but if you are humble, you will be respected.” When Slattery condemns Dante’s human state as being weak, doubtful, and limited, he is proving God’s hypocrisy because He is also human (Verdicchio, 2015). The actions of God in Hell as portrayed by Dante are inconsistent with the Biblical literature. Both Dante and God are prone to making mistakes, something common among human beings thus making God more human.
To wrap it up, Dante portrays God is more human since He commits the same sins that humans commit: egotism, hypocrisy, and injustice. Hell is justified as being a destination for victims of the mistakes committed by God. The Hell is presented as being a totally different place as compared to what is written about it in the Bible. As a result, reading through the text gives an image of God who is prone to the very mistakes common to humans thus ripping Him off His lofty status of divine and, instead, making Him a mere human. Whether or not Dante did it intentionally is subject to debate but one thing is clear in the poem: the misconstrued notion of God is revealed to future generations.
References
Babor, T. F., McGovern, T., & Robaina, K. (2017). Dante’s inferno: Seven deadly sins in scientific publishing and how to avoid them. Addiction Science: A Guide for the Perplexed, 267.
Cheney, L. D. G. (2016). Illustrations for Dante’s Inferno: A Comparative Study of Sandro Botticelli, Giovanni Stradano, and Federico Zuccaro. Cultural and Religious Studies, 4(8), 487.
Verdicchio, M. (2015). Irony and Desire in Dante’s” Inferno” 27. Italica, 285-297.
Sample Answer
Sample Answer
The Case of Elonis v. United States
Overview of the Court Case
The case of Elonis v. United States was a landmark Supreme Court case that dealt with the issue of free speech on social media platforms. The defendant, Anthony Elonis, posted a series of threatening messages on Facebook, which included violent and graphic content. These posts were directed towards his estranged wife, coworkers, and law enforcement agencies. Elonis argued that his posts were merely artistic expressions and did not amount to true threats.
Laws Considered Broken
The key legal issue in this case revolved around whether Elonis’ posts constituted “true threats” as defined by the federal law. The relevant statute in question was Section 875(c) of Title 18 of the United States Code, which makes it a federal crime to transmit in interstate commerce any communication containing a threat to injure another person.
Evaluation of the Case
Personally, I believe that the court ruling in Elonis v. United States was justifiable and did not violate any laws. The court correctly interpreted the law and upheld the principle that free speech does not protect direct and credible threats made against others.
While the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, it is not an absolute right. The Supreme Court has consistently held that true threats are not protected under the First Amendment, as they infringe upon the rights and safety of others. Elonis’ posts contained explicit and violent language, which caused reasonable fear and distress among the recipients. The context and intent behind his posts indicated a genuine threat to harm others.
Moreover, it is important to consider the potential consequences of allowing such threats to go unchecked on social media platforms. Social media has become an integral part of our society, and threats made online have real-world implications. Allowing individuals to freely make credible threats on social media would create an environment conducive to harassment, intimidation, and violence.
In this case, the Supreme Court ruled that for a statement to be considered a true threat, it must be evaluated from an objective standard. The court maintained that a reasonable person in the recipient’s position would have viewed Elonis’ posts as true threats, regardless of his subjective intent.
Overall, the court’s decision in Elonis v. United States was necessary to strike a balance between protecting free speech and ensuring public safety. It sent a clear message that individuals cannot hide behind artistic expression or ambiguous intentions when their online communications pose a genuine threat to others.
