Spun threat

A spun threat is a common tactic on poorly managed public Internet forums, by which a clique of people supporting their friends can subvert almost any due process.

The tactic begins with an ambiguous or political statement that, to some biased or hidden-agenda'd readers, appears threatening - usually to their agenda, which they spin into a perceived threat against their person. To a randomly chosen sample of readers, however, it reads just like an ambiguous or political statement. Any attempt to clarify the statement by the author of it, is almost always censored under some excuse, by the same tactics as other ad hominem deletes are excused.

The use of the ST indicates groupthink and juggling misrepresentations are in play, and is usually deliberately employed to bolster a power structure that seeks to control sysop power structure.

The desire to label or control whoever uttered the statement, encourages others to stand by as statements by another faction are called a "Threat", which is a label that gives the reader power over the author - the power to "report them as terrorists" or something. If others repeat this misrepresentation, as they will if they share some bias or goal (tendency) with the first to call it a "death threat", the end result is a "spun" belief that the original comment "was" unambiguously, threatening and dangerous. This is one of a general class of distortions well described in General Semantics.

Belief in virtual community may increase the odds of some statement being turned into a spun threat. A real community of living beings is necessarily less tolerant of confrontation in discourse than a global group of people debating in text form. Treating the community point of view as if it were priveleged without due process is mob rule but not democracy.

Often the "community" may demand apology for its own discomfort, which was actually created by "the community" itself! Such an apology is of course submitting to that "community" as an arbiter in such cases, which may be morally impossible, or just stupid, if this would encourage such "spin" in the future:

It is generally a bad idea to reward those who apply racism or paranoia to ambiguous statements and conclude they are "Threats", with such status builders as public apologies, freely given retractions, etc. If insincere they decrease all trust in written statements in that context. If sincere, they reward the worst possible social behaviour, that which creates groupthink.

The faction system seems to be the only way to normalize and regulate such political disputes, or tactical disputes in general.