[jmull]

Seems like he was hoping to get his twitter followers to harass them in a manner similar to the way he did -- otherwise why tweet it?

Probably receiving death threats causes a lot of real anxiety (not just the PC snowflake kind). That's a lot better than an actual assassination, but it's not nothing either.

[concordDance]

> Seems like he was hoping to get his twitter followers to harass them in a manner similar to the way he did -- otherwise why tweet it?

People often say things just to express themselves rather than for any planned and considered reason.

I greatly doubt the plan was to cause harassment. The gains are extremely low and this could cost him his job.

[jmull]

> People often say things just to express themselves rather than for any planned and considered reason.

Sure, but you don't have to express yourself on twitter... you do that when you want to communicate something to all your followers.

> ...The gains are extremely low and this could cost him his job.

That's true of the tweet by itself. If sober reason was going to hold him back there would be no tweet at all.

[concordDance]

> you do that when you want to communicate something to all your followers.

Or you do it automatically and habitually. The brain to mouth filter and a brain to keyboard filter are similar, many people don't have either.