You have no sympathy for the victim (and based on your attitude, probably none towards victimized women in general). I have no sympathy for the harasser. Seems we're even, at worst.
Ah yes, since I don't think should be held criminally liable for being an asshole in an internet fight I clearly have no sympathy for their recipients. And amazingly, I also probably have no sympathy towards any female victims of anything. Bravo, this line of thinking is amazing.
I have sympathy for all people who have to deal with trolls online. Words are powerful, and even when you know someone is just trying to upset you it's hard to not always become upset anyway, and it's hard to not turn away when you should. I've seen stuff like what she's received and worse and it sucks, regardless of the gender of the recipient. I never shied away from calling it disgusting.
But retaliating with criminal charges and in particular incarceration is both unnecessary and counterproductive, not to mention ridiculously disproportionate. Putting someone in jail over this probably won't convince them that they did anything wrong, it'll just ruin their life for a while and subject them to much greater harm.
It's been proven that comments were made on Melville's Facebook, which is really moot given that it's Newton that pressed charges over comments made to her. But as far as initiating communication goes, by all appearances Newton was the one who first started talking to Alchin after he asked why another poster wasn't responding to him. Newton answered with "Because your disgusting and don't deserve our time and effort", and of course proceeded to give him her time and effort.
It's not completely clear what the total sequence of events is because the original posts are gone and we only have screenshots which pick what one side wanted to show.
Since the entire foundation of your initial argument was disproven, now you are effectively claiming that harassment laws should not exist at all:
There should be laws against persistent unwanted communication, eg stalking (including internet stalking). Saying offensive things in a heated argument is not something that I think should be considered harassment, and while there may be jurisdictions that would consider it that is far from universal. The scope of what we have to start opening the courts to would be off the charts - not that I think it'll ever be taken seriously unless such "harassment" covers a very narrow type of language and recipient.
However, as Mr. Alchin discovered, harassment laws do exist. I'm glad I don't live in a world where you have to "actually cause someone physical harm" for it to be a crime.
And I'm glad I live in a country where someone at some point decided that when disgusting people voice their reprehensible ideas we respond by showing how their ideas are stupid and wrong, rather than turning them into slaves.
Let me know when something like this happens in America.
Certainly, if someone makes comments that make it seem likely that they will impose harm on another person there's reason to arrest them. But this has to pass some kind of reasonable external standard, not just that someone is concerned. And by an even standard there would be absolutely zero reason to convict this guy but not convict the several people on Facebook saying that they want to assault him or even put a bullet in his head. Anyone who comes down hard on the one and refuses to talk about the other is not applying an impartial standard, plain and simple. Of course, most thinking people would realize that neither side is making credible threats and need to be detained. And I don't really believe that the people calling for this guy's conviction think he's threatening, they just think he should be jailed for saying things that are hateful and degrading to women.
It appears that your last remaining defense is "they have a shitty law." You're entitled to your opinion, of course.
You seem to think I was making a legal argument when I never was.
IMO the ideal solution would be for behavior like this to be publicly condemned to such an extent that it dwindles away. Unfortunately we aren't there yet.
The public is condemning the shit out of this. Even the guy who posted the Tinder profile, Chris Hall, lost his job over this. If you mean that such condemnation isn't making it go away entirely.. you can't seriously actually believe that would happen.