Chris Pirillo puts some perspective on the whole Kathy Sierra death threats meme. I totally avoided the issue in my post on Scoble’s chicken reaction at 901am because it’s difficult to talk about perspective when some one is legitimately upset about what has happened (as I have no doubt that Sierra is) without sounding like you’re either denigrating the victim or siding with the people making the death threats.
I’ve had death threats before, although none I’ve ever taken seriously, but unlike others I’ve actually been attacked with a Kitchen Clever. Luckily my friend and I backed right away on that fateful day about 10 days prior to the 1996 Australian Federal Election and the nutter Labor Party member swung the clever widly at us as he sought to steal the “Mutch for Cook” banner we’d strung on a highway overpass. I didn’t piss my pants, but I’ll admit I was pretty close to it, and it took me at least an hour to stop shaking. I’ll never forget that day till the day I die, and unless you’ve been the victim of any sort of crime like this it’s impossible to relate the feelings something like this brings up. But I digress, because I do sympathise with Kathy’s position, but others need to put it all in perspective, and actually stand up for free speech online, not back away from it. If you’re angry about the death threats, double your blogging efforts.
