@CallumBradbury The comment just above you explained how it was ghosting. He was stream sniping, which is a fact. That also implies ghosting. That is, you can ghost without stream sniping, but you cannot stream snipe without ghosting.

@Clay07g assuming most people would resort to bigotry seems problematic to say the least. I absolutely disagree with that premise.

@DoritoStyle Lets consider a similar example. Lets pretend there's a street performer. Now, lets say this street performer's coworker found a random picture of them performing on social media. They track down their location, then proceed to harass the performer and destroy their act. Repeatedly. The performer is visibly upset, asks the harasser to stop, but that's literally the reaction the harasser is looking for, so they keep going, until eventually the street performer strikes the harasser.

Would you hold the street performer at fault? I agree you wouldn't say "most people wouldn't turn to violence," but would you denounce the ones that do in that situation? Likewise, when someone does the same through an internet platform, words are the only tools you have to defend yourself.

I'm certain OP's coworker didn't jump immediately into offensive ones, since "Each time, he [got] more visibly mad." Instead, the tried getting the harasser to stop until being provoked into doing something offensive. Just like we don't hold the street performer to perfect conduct after facing continuous harassment, why would we hold OP's coworker to that?

@LordFarquaad not even close to comparable in my opinion. That comparison is a non-starter.

But yeah, the performer would still be liable for battery, even if provoked.

@LordFarquaad and that is where we disagree.

@DoritoStyle No one is discussing whether or not it would be legal.

The way I see it, it is a good analogy. An even better one would be that the street performer yells at the harasser and insults them after being pushed so far (the meatspace equivalent to typing out insults in all caps).

@forest that’s exactly why is a bad analogy

An actually better example would be of the performer was caught on a cell phone video recording yelling racial & gender slurs and uploaded to YouTube.

Explain.

The idea is that the performer is public, regardless of whether or not they were "caught on camera". The analogy seems to intend to take an online event and represent it as an event in real life. In that case, the analogy for being "caught" making slurs while streaming is being "caught" making slurs while performing in public.

There is no need to add the internet back to the analogy.

Saying that it would be a better analogy to involve the internet is like saying it would be a better analogy if it were a video gamer, not a street performer!