SD v Guava 2026 Crim 7

SD v Guava [2026] Crim 7

Date of judgment	4th March 2026
Judge	Judge Benbookworm
Charges	1 count of Terms of Service Violation (Article 64 of the Criminal Code 2020)
Decision	No probable cause exists, and the case is dismissed
Applicable persuasive precedent	Adopts the Watts factors for “true threats”: the context of the statement or statements in question; the reaction of the recipient or listeners; and whether the threat was conditional, [10]

JUDGMENT by Judge Benbookworm

Introduction

[1] The State charges one count of TOS violation under Article 64 of the Criminal Code 2020. To establish probable cause, they presented one message from the defendant in the holding cell saying, “i'm going to kill u” in response to “@Arrested bing”

[2] The prosecution points to the second point from Discord's Community Guidelines:

“Do not threaten to harm another individual or group of people. This includes direct, indirect, and suggestive threats. (See our Bullying, Harassment, and Threats Policy Explainer for more.)”

[3]The court thus turns to the policy explainer.

[3.1] Note, this page also links to instructions on how to report such behavior, where reaching out to the server's moderators is described as a secondary method, with the primary reporting method being directly to Discord.

[4] Potentially relevant lines from the Bullying and Harassment section includes “Bullying and harassment are defined as intentional actions meant to cause distress or intimidate individuals” and an example “Calling for the suicide or self-harm of others”. This does not quite apply here.

[5] Under Threats, “This includes threats of physical attacks, emotional suffering, reputational damage, and any hostile actions intended to cause pain, loss, or injury” with the relevant example “Threatening to physically harm another individual or group of people”.

Arguments presented to the court

[6] In their motion to dismiss, the defense argued that SimDemocracy is not expected to levy bans for such minor TOS breaches made in jest. They claimed that 18 such comments have been made in the past month, including by respected government officials, but provided no citations. The defense also brought attention to the charged conduct having occurred about five months ago.

[7] Although not explicitly permitted in the Courtroom Procedure Act 2025, the prosecution submitted a response to the motion to dismiss, arguing that the defense must show that the case is insufficient on its face. They also pointed to the low bar set by Article 64 of the Criminal Code, and that the statute of limitations for the charged offense is quite long.

What constitutes a true threat?

[8] Per its Terms of Service, Discord is primarily bound by the jurisprudence of United States federal law and California state law. The court turns now to that as common law to evaluate whether the defendant’s speech constitutes a true threat, and would thus be wholly outside any protections of law.

[8.1] A private party may regulate speech on its platform that would otherwise be protected against criminal and civil prosecution. However, if something is not actually a threat at all, then it could not truthfully be argued to violate Discord’s Community Guidelines.

[9] A clear example of a threat not meeting the standard would be one the threatener objectively and subjectively has no power to even attempt: “I will throw your body into the Sun.” Not only would that require resources far beyond the average SimDemocracy user, it would be a far more efficient use of propellant to eject them from the solar system instead.

[10] In the seminal Watts v. United States, 394 U. S. 705, 708 (1969), Watts was protesting the idea of being drafted into the Vietnam War and said, “[i]f they ever make me carry a rifle the first man I want to get in my sights is [US President] L.B.J.” The three factors identified by the Court in Watts include: the context of the statement or statements in question; the reaction of the recipient or listeners; and whether the threat was conditional.

[10.1] Although the defendant's statement was not conditional, the linked message is followed by listeners clearly seeing it as a “gotcha” rather than a true threat, and the context is in response to “@arrested bing” which was plainly intended to antagonize the denizens of the holding cell.

[10.2] In fact, the threatened user themself responded with the “risistas” reaction and another user pinging “@SBDI” as a parody of the SimDemocracy Bureau of Investigations role, showing that listeners at the time viewed it as a joke.

[11] In Virginia v. Black, 538 U.S. 343, 359 (2003): “statements where the speaker means to communicate a serious expression of an intent to commit an act of unlawful violence to a particular individual or group of individuals.” The lack of serious intent is contrasted with United States v. Turner, No. 11-196 (2d Cir. 2013), where “such an obviously flippant statement [from Watts] is quite different from Turner’s lengthy and detailed discussion of killing the three judges.”

[11.1] Here, the defendant’s speech is clearly flippant, unserious, and lacking details.

Decision

[12] Taken as a whole, the context makes it plainly evident that no reasonable person could find the charged conduct would constitute a violation of Discord’s Terms of Service.

[13] The court finds no probable cause, and dismisses the complaint. However, as the defendant is banned from the server on other matters, the defendant is not to be released.