Never before in the history of man has a lawyer letter generated more lust than Ken’s. It came as a response to an embarrassingly bad cease and desist letter, barely comprehensible, replete with errors and conceptually bizarre, and stood up for the right of some folks at Etsy to speak their mind without being subject to a lawyer’s threats.

The folks at Regretsy went bonkers.

That Ken jumped into the fray, pro bono, to stand up for commenters on the internet who appeared to be attacked by a lawyer threatening all sort of horrible things is, to say the least, admirable. Ken’s letter was somewhat long-winded (don’t worry, I already told him that privately) and routine, but it was perfectly fine work.  Not quite the stuff to make hot women drop their bloomers, and yet demands for his naked pictures abounded.  Ken tells me he thinks they were satirical because he’s a humble guy, and knows what he looks like disrobed, I’m not quite sure that’s true.

And so he had about 24 hours to enjoy the outpouring of love and admiration before the frenzy got out of control.  That’s the thing about whipping up the masses into a frenzy. It creates momentum that’s hard to stop.  While most people have a bit of fun but temper their conduct with a basic grasp of propriety, there may well be a few who either can’t control their worst impulses or are, how shall I say this, batshit crazy.

A day after the celebrations, Ken was constrained to post again. It seems that some didn’t stop at requesting nude pictures of Ken, but went on to threaten the family of the lawyer, including his child.

I stand by what I wrote in my response to the cease-and-desist letter. Nobody who reads this site is likely to doubt my commitment to freedom of expression. But allow me to be blunt: if you are the sort of person who thinks it is funny to react to this sort of situation by making threats, or targeting somebody’s kid, or engaging in harassment that crosses the line into illegal behavior, you are not a friend of free speech, and you are not my friend. You’re an enemy. 

On the internet, things have a tendency to spiral out of control without warning. As much as we anticipate that readers are reasonably normal and will conduct themselves within the parameters of propriety, it’s impossible to discount that a number of crazies who also happen to agree with general propositions are reading as well. They’re behavior may not comport with law or norms.

You want to argue? Fine. You want to criticize? Fine. You want to ridicule? Fine. But when you threaten, and if you cross the line into unlawful harassment, and if you target families of controversial figures, you’re hurting the cause you think you’re fighting for. You’re also making it easier for law enforcement, and legislatures, and courts to justify censorship. You’re a problem. And if you become my problem, I’m going to use my First Amendment rights to make you pay. You won’t enjoy it.

A valiant effort, and hopefully one that will succeed in this instance, but a very important lesson to be learned here. As much as writers (including hottie lawyers like Ken) may think it’s all fun and games on the interwebz, we never know what will catch the fancy of the crowd and go viral.  We never really know who is reading and what they will take away from it. We never really know what someone whose grasp of reality is tenuous will do.

My first reaction to the Regretsy adoration was amusement, as the idea of Ken as sex symbol gave rise to several meme possibilities that could rival lolcats.  But soon, it dawned on me that the frenzy was getting a bit uncontrolled for comfort.  Creepy was a description used as well, and indeed it was.  When I read Ken’s post trying to rein in the threats, I was not surprised.  It struck me as only a matter of time before things would boil over.

I doubt that those who threatened a child are concerned with how their actions impact the fight against censorship. I suspect they aren’t anywhere near that thoughtful or rational, as thoughtful and rational people don’t do such things.  I don’t know whether Ken’s threat to make them pay is going to change their behavior.

In fact, my concern has shifted to Ken.  Not only did he take on the responsibility of standing up for target of that awful cease and desist letter, but he’s now taken on the responsibility of telling the craziest of his adoring fans that they’re not friend of his. This is an incredibly risky thing to do, particularly as they’ve already demonstrated that they lack the sound judgment to conduct themselves appropriately and rationally. Whoever thought it was a good idea to send a video of a kids school, a disgusting and reprehensible threat, could easily shift from adoration to hatred.

Beware the love of the masses on the internet.  There are people around who are dangerous, who don’t think clearly and can’t conduct themselves lawfully and properly.  And as much as they may love you one moment, they can turn on you the next. 

That Ken took the risk of standing up to his own adoring fans who went off the deep end shows the depth of his fortitude, a very admirable trait.  I hope that it won’t come back to prove the adage that no good deed goes unpunished.  And should that happen, I hope that his friends, his admirers, of which I am one, will not let Ken stand alone.  He did the right thing, both in his response to the letter and his confronting the crazies. But he took a great risk in doing so. Don’t let Ken stand alone.