How to threaten someone professionally

I'm no expert in making threats against other people, whether they are family, friends, or complete strangers. Sure, I have my opinions about things, and I voice them out on my blog since it is my outlet avenue. I believe most of you enjoy reading what I write (otherwise you won't keep coming back, right ;o)?), and I have had friends giving me positive feedback about how humourous and entertaining my posts are :o).

Nevertheless, there are a couple of readers who think that my blog is the crappiest website in the world. That's fair enough, since this couple are most definitely the target on some of my posts anyway. What's funny is that even though I don't force these people to read my blog, they somehow seem to value my opinions so much that they just keep wanting to come back. They would even go an extra mile more than my regular readers just to come visit my blogosphere! Guys…I am really, sincerely touched… .

Anyway…it apparently seems to come to a point whereby these dear readers of mine think that by threatening me with eg. a lawsuit, they will get me to shut up and keep my opinions about them to myself… . Unfortunately for them, this aint America, and better still, THEY aren't celebrities… . In fact, they are very much just anonymous beings on this blog - even when they leave comments. And fortunately for me, I do have my rights to freedom of speech in this fairytale country… . After all, if you have been on planet Earth in 2005 and 2006, then you must surely have read about the infamous Mohammed cartoons published in Denmark.

Hmm…digressing a little, there was a man called Abu Laban who had played a very central role in adding wood to fire and blowing every thing out of proportion when encouraging the Muslim world to prosecute Denmark as a nation for exercising her freedom of speech on the Mohammad cartoons. Wanna know what happened to him shortly after in early 2007? He died of cancer. Draw your own conclusions - I have mine.

So yes, back to the topic… . If you still want to threaten someone for exercising their freedom of speech on insignificant, non-controversial issues which simply do not bother the rest of the world, or even just a tiny nation, then here's how to do it a bit more professionally:

1. Do *NOT* use your work email to send out the threat.

This would be one of the biggest and most foolish mistake of all time. I mean, if you use your work email, then it means that you are representing the company that you work for, and I don't believe that ANY professional company wants their employees directly or indirectly threatening/harassing members of the public who could very well be potential customers, right? If it goes to the press….oh boy, it would be bad… . Might get you fired too…and it won't look good on your CV… .

Tabloid Headlines: 819 XY's employee threatens member of public. Company sued for harassment!

2. If you have to give a deadline for a course of action, then give a frame of time which is not so laughable. ...(This point now invalid. See update below)

For example, if you send out the threat on Thursday, 22:18hrs, and write "you have 48hrs to do as I say or else I'll get my lawyer," it would mean that I have till Saturday, 22:18hrs, doesn't it? I don't know how it is in America, but here in Denmark, I doubt there are lawyers working at your disposal on Saturday nights, AND on Sundays too. Which means, I would actually have MORE than the 48hrs you say I have, if you should get in touch with your lawyer on Monday… .

3. Back up your words with FACTS.

If you tell your victim that the law is "crystal clear" on this and that, then you'll need to prove it, baby. I mean, if I know for a FACT that you ain't a lawyer, then why should I believe what you tell me is the LAW if you don't back it up with something concrete? It just won't scare me since your words have no authority… . In FACT, it'll only tickle me… .

4. Choose your subjects carefully.

Now, if you demand that I remove certain pictures of eg. you from my blog, please do NOT choose the pictures in which your head is cut off completely in every one of them… .

"But it's me in that picture!!!"

Erm..k...and who are you???

"You can't see my face, but I'm telling you, it's me!!! It's really me!!! And it's just embarrassing me! You even wrote it's me, even if you didn't mention my real name, so now everywhere I go, people are SO going to recognise me just by the way I dress in those pictures!"

Right… . Next joke, please - this one's getting kinda lame… .

5. Last but not least, do make sure your lawyer has a good sense of humour.

When you write at the end of your threat that "This is not a joke" after breaking all the above points, then trust me, I won't see it in any other light than it BEING a joke. However, if you do take your own joke seriously and end up in your lawyer's office carrying out this threat, then do at least make sure that he'll have a really good sense of humour and just wave you off saying "Thanks for entertaining me in my otherwise very boring day." If he doesn't have a good sense of humour, then he might just slap you with an expensive lawyer's fee for simply wasting his precious time which would have been better used on fighting the big guys… .


Like I said before, I'm no expert in threatening people, but sometimes all it takes is just a small ounce of common sense if you really want to do it… . With that small ounce of common sense, it might even make you realise how ridiculous it all is such that it would make you change your mind and save you from future embarrassment… .

UPDATE! (30 August 2007)
Hmm...someone wrote a message in my guestbook with a valid point in regards to my point#2:

"That the "threatener" gives you the time frame of 48 hours, doesn't mean that he will contact a lawyer at the end of those 48 hours. That deadline is just for you to comply, meaning if you comply after 49 hours, he might contact a lawyer anyway, once he decides to. Not saying that he would get anything out of it in this case though. It's quite silly, but... ."

Well, Spanky (as you called yourself)...thank you for your input. Your point is taken, so I render my point#2 in this post invalid.

I would suggest though, that you try using another host next time, especially when you decided to start negatively labelling me towards the end. With an IP number like 67.159.44.138 which you used, it makes it rather difficult for me to make you feel more welcomed... .

67.159.44.138 - courtesy of Wiki:
Open proxy. Have not yet been able to successfully connect through it; however, it has a nonsensical hostname, and a fast scan revealed about 25 open ports, including some very odd ones. Also seems to be running a very poorly configured apache webserver that is likely quite exploitable. It seems entirely probable that this host can and has been used as a proxy. Already blocked, but just leaving for future reference. AmiDaniel (talk) 04:18, 14 June 2007 (UTC)