Twitter joke gets serious as British man arrested for airport terrorism threat tweet
Be careful what you say on Twitter, because in these over-sensitive times, someone, somewhere is undoubtedly reading your tweets just waiting for any kind of slip-up. Don’t believe me? Then read on.
The whole of the U.K. spent the fortnight after New Year covered in ice and snow, which caused massive transport problems. On Jan. 6, Paul Chambers started worrying that his plans to fly to Ireland on the 15th would be affected by his local airport in Doncaster being closed. So he sent a JOKE tweet (and it’s important to accentuate the joke part of this) saying:
Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!
Not very funny, granted, but also not worthy of what happened next.
According to The Guardian, police arrested Chambers soon after he’d sent his tweet, citing the Terrorism Act. He was questioned about the tweet for six hours, and had his home computer, laptop, and iPhone confiscated. Police claim they received a tip-off from one of Chambers’ Twitter followers and defended their actions.
Personally, I think this was complete overkill. And just in case anyone in authority is reading this, no, that doesn’t mean I’m going to kill anyone. Better to be safe than sorry.
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August 28th, 2010
Whether I am not intriguing enough, or I just have no idea how you can market myself personally but I genuinely are unable to obtain any kind of followers. I’ve made an effort following people to get a friendly follow back, aids a bit but it just seems everybody who does that would like the same exact thing as myself, anyone to look over their daily drivel.