Jack Mahoney
English 123
The “Brandenburg test” is a ruling that is best known for giving America “shouting fire in a theater” as an aphorism describing actions that have a tendency to cause panic and “create a clear and present danger” through sedition or lawlessness (Keller). The Brandenburg test is different from clear and present danger because clear and present danger means that the threat is real and causes serious harm immediately.
Stochastic terrorism is terrorism that occurs at a random time to ignite fear in the eyes of a certain group of people.
Stochastic terrorism makes it hard to apply the Brandenburg test to terrorism because of the random time that the terroism occurs. There would be no way to connect an act of terroism to a conspiracy theory that happens for no reason unless there was a reason for it.
Personally, I believe that free speech should protect conspiracy theories, but to a certain limit. Although people are entitled to their own personal beliefs, I believe that if they are causing a threat to other people’s daily lives by creating fear this should not be allowed. Along with this, people should only believe the conspiracy theories if there is proof to back them up. This is because if there is no proof fear and false information will spread.
You’re missing an important part of “stochastic terrorism.” This is the important passage: “As I wrote in the aftermath of the October of 2018 Tree of Life synagogue massacre in Pennsylvania—an incident that the FBI explicitly cited in its intelligence bulletin—political scientists tend refer to this phenomenon as “stochastic terrorism,” the use of mass communication to “incite random actors to carry out violent or terrorist acts that are statistically predictable but individually unpredictable.””
Here’s another relevant passage: ” Even if proof existed of intent to incite, the whole concept of stochastic terrorism suggests that imminence and likelihood are necessarily ambiguous. As David Cohen put it in Rolling Stone, Trump “puts out the dog whistle knowing that some dog will hear it, even though he doesn’t know which dog.””
Please compare these passages to what you wrote, identify what you missed and revise your answer. Join the online Office Hours on Friday at 10 if you need help.