The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments in a groundbreaking case next week over the right to free speech when it comes to making violent and/or threatening language on social networks.

The First Amendment case will decide whether the use of threatening speech on Facebook and other social media breaks the law when the speaker's intent is not clear.

On Dec. 1, the High Court will hear oral arguments in the case, which centers on Anthony Elonis, a Pennsylvania man who spent almost four years in federal prison after posting violent online rants against his estranged wife.

About a week after his wife Tara received an order of protection against him, he posted a disturbing message on Facebook that read: "Fold up your PFA [protection-from-abuse order] and put it in your pocket. Is it thick enough to stop a bullet?" reports the Washington Post.

In another post about his wife, Elonis wrote "There's one way to love you but a thousand ways to kill you. I'm not going to rest until your body is a mess, soaked in blood and dying from all the little cuts," reports CBS News. He also talked about shooting up an elementary school, writing "hell hath no fury like a crazy man in a kindergarten class."

After he threatened to bomb the Dorney Park and Wildwater Kingdom amusement park where he worked, he was fired from his job and an FBI agent paid a visit to his home. Following the visit, Elonis recounted his meeting with the agent on Facebook, writing: "Little Agent Lady stood so close took all the strength I had not to turn the b---h Ghost. Pull my knife, flick my wrist, and slit her throat."

Lawyers representing Elonis claim that his comments were protected by the First Amendment, and that he had no intent to carry out the threats. Instead, they argue that he was depressed and made the online posts as a means of venting his frustration and personal troubles.

Now, it will be up to the Supreme Court to decide if Elonis's postings constituted a "true threat" to his wife and others, and if any reasonable person targeted in the rants would consider them as menacing warnings.

However, Elonis and his supporters say the court must discern the writer's intent.

"Internet users may give vent to emotions on which they have no intention of acting, memorializing expressions of momentary anger or exasperation that once were communicated face-to-face among friends and dissipated harmlessly," said a brief filed on Elonis's behalf by the Student Press Law Center, the Electronic Frontier Foundation and the writers organization PEN.

On the other hand, domestic violence experts say social media is being used as a tool for dispensing threats.

Victims of domestic abuse "have experienced real-life terror caused by increasingly graphic and public posts to Facebook and other social media sites - terror that is exacerbated precisely because abusers now harness the power of technology, 'enabling them to reach their victims' everyday lives at the click of a mouse or the touch of a screen," according to a brief filed by the National Network to End Domestic Violence.