Supreme Court backs free speech rules in online stalking case
The US Supreme Court sided with free speech advocates Tuesday in ruling that a man's online harassment of a country singer could only be deemed illegally threatening if he knew it could be understood as such.The high court overruled the Colorado conviction of Billy Counterman for making what the western US state deemed threats among the thousands of unwelcome Facebook messages he sent to country singer Coles Whalen from 2014 to 2016. True threats are not protected by the US Constitution's guarantee of free speech rights.…