'can be read' is not a valid standard of reading

Let's not be melodramatic here. LWN is within their rights to make reasonable moderation choices about what comments they wish to host on their website. The original comment was at the very least suggesting that a heckler's veto applies to DeVault and LWN should therefore avoid covering him, which is already a problematic argument even if you don't interpret it as a threat of any kind.

But reading it as a threat is not out of the question either. The hypothetical of someone committing an act of violence against DeVault because he wrote something "wrong" on his blog seems (to my mind) so absurd as to be farcical. But if we don't think that's a serious possibility, then that leaves 2½ other readings: The comment can be read as pure trolling (suggesting a danger which does not exist, for the purpose of upsetting people), as a veiled threat (suggesting that the commenter will create the danger), or as an intentionally ambiguous mixture of both. Either way, it does not belong on LWN.