USA TODAY

People choose to react however they want to what is said.

When there’s threat of your contact information being released that could mean violent protestors outside your home.

Until CNN grows up, start reporting real news and quit acting like a bully, things will only go downhill.

CNN has been accused of blackmailing the man who created a meme of President Trump tackling CNN by threatening to reveal his identity. Comments are edited for clarity and grammar:

The person responsible for the meme was truly brave until threatened with exposure, then the whining started. I’m all for free speech, but I’m also for consequences. If you’re going to be a coward, then expect to be treated like one. If you can’t say it with honor, don’t say it.

— Bill Cochran

People have a right to say anything they want. When people claim that what someone says incites violence, that's just not true. People choose to react however they want to what is said. If we realize that many people say things for shock value, we should understand that when we give attention, we are giving the provocateur what he wants. When people respond to these things in a negative way, they are only destroying themselves in the process, and making the original communication newsworthy and more important. The old adage, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me,” seems applicable. The truth is, words only matter if you give them weight. If we don’t give them the platform, words don’t go anywhere.

— Larry Hubble

CNN reserved the right to share the meme creator’s identity if he continued. In 2017, there’s threat of your identity and contact information being released that could very well mean hundreds of violent protestors converging outside your home or work. This was a threat. It was intimidation. It was blackmail.

— Teve Layton

CNN’s threat was a self-serving attack. Then CNN uses its power to squash being satirized, and nobody is supposed to notice? A global “news” network threatening to silence a critique of its journalistic integrity is a threat to us all.

— Tom Genin

Policing the USA

CNN, journalists should have no pity for anonymous internet trolls

Letter to the editor:

Kirsten Powers makes a self-righteous defense of CNN in her column "CNN, journalists should have no pity for anonymous internet trolls." Did the person who made the wrestling video of President Trump and CNN act like an adult ? No. Did Trump use his best judgment in sending it out? No. And did CNN management behave in a mature manner with their ham-handed blackmail attempt? Of course not. The difference is that "Hans A**hole Solo" is possibly a boy, so perhaps he has an excuse for not acting like an adult.

For those of you in the liberal snowflake bubble, let me tell you that his video was seen by the average person as nothing more than a joke. It's not like someone posed with a picture of CNN President Jeff Zucker's bloody, severed head or had a play in depicting Zucker being knifed to death. But since these were actual acts against Trump, I am sure that CNN and Powers have no problem with them. Until CNN grows up, start reporting real news and quit acting like a bully, things will only go downhill.

Kenneth Randall; Radvliff, Ky.

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