Twitter Joke Goes to the High Court

[Some_weirdGuy]

guys, yahtzee just joked about mailing out anthrax packages in his latest video, something open to the public that anyone can see, quickly sue him and press criminal charges and make him lose his job and so on!

oh wait, that would be stupid...

 

[LostAlone]

Someone above said that this is the police trying to blame him for their over-reaction, and that is absolutely the case. +3 internets to you sir.

Honestly, that's the only way that such a case could be prosecuted. Someone, somewhere, started looking into this and instead of taking it to a superior and showing him the whole tweet, he most likely said 'Someone just made a bomb threat' which immediately got the wheels turning. And by the time that anyone in any position to stop it got to read the whole thing they had already spent so much on it that they couldn't turn back.

If the last couple of years have taught us anything its that the British legal system is so terrible in dealing with Twitter. They are constantly trying to apply laws from the paper-era to it with a dreadful humourless certainty.

Oh and my captch for this post ?: Last Straw. So true.

 

[Grant Stackhouse]

A perfect example of american court system blowing everything out of proportion.

I can't tell if you are being serious or not. So, like the British court that blew everything out of proportion in this story, I'll just have to assume that you made that comment with the utmost sincerity.

I hereby find you guilty of being wrong and sentence you to 1000 instances of writing "Dear America, I'm sorry." on the chalkboard in your best cursive.

 

[Tiger Sora]

At least back in the day the IRA had the courtesy to call first. Terrorists these days just post a flyer somewhere on the internet and hope the foot traffic will stop to read it. Guess they've more important things to do, like actually blowing shit up instead of talking about it all the damn time to drum up attention.

White guy terrorism. Nearly an entire English/Irish thing.

 

[Owlslayer]

This makes me angry. The guy just made a stupid tweet, a joke, and now his life is kinda ruined.
I mean, most people make silly jokes like that all the time...Tho i suppose making one in Twitter was not the smartest move.

 

[Clearing the Eye]

This seems like one of those stories where there's a lot more to it than we're seeing here. Hopefully >_>

 

[someonehairy-ish]

Quick, let's go round Britain arresting everybody who's ever said 'Do x/Don't do x/Stay away from x, or I'll kill you!' And all of those people who've posted similar on facebook. You know... just in case they actually do. Because that's likely.

...

[sub]That was sarcasm, just in case anybody isn't sure.[/sub]

 

[DEAD34345]

What a load of shit. He's not even slightly to blame, and the fact that he can get a criminal conviction for something so obviously harmless is ridiculous. If police wasted resources investigating this "threat", that's their fault for being retarded, no-one else's. He owes them nothing, but the justice system owes him a whole lot for fucking up his entire life without cause or reason.

 

[someonehairy-ish]

On one hand, yes, it's a pretty big over-reaction. They could have easily just disciplined him at work and gotten him to take the tweet down.

On the other hand, you don't make fun of your employer publicly, over twitter. Especially when you're just a trainee. And come on. You don't make jokes about blowing up an airport, when you work at said airport. You just don't do it man, common sense.

Dude he was an accountant. He didn't work at the airport. And he didn't actually make a joke about his employer; he just said that his tweet was no more serious than making a joke about his employer.
You were talking about the same article as me?

 

[someonehairy-ish]

The 'Libel reform' push to stop people coming here to sue scientists who call out your non medical, unproven ridiculous quackery.

Ooh? Do tell. I almost got a warning from work the other day for laughing at somebody asking if we sold homeopathy kits...

To be fair, I thought he was taking the piss.

 

[Mr_Spanky]

This happening in a country that supposed to be one of the champions of free speech. Oh sorry I mean unless you want say something that a five year old could work out was a joke/blowing off steam.

And then they wonder why, when a Bill comes down from on high that allows government officials, police, secret service, the army and god knows who else to legally and without the need for a warrant or justification, listen into and record phonecalls, email messages and any other kind of human communication or interaction alot of people get pretty worried. The innocent have everything to fear. Poor bastard.

Thank fuck I live in a free country now. <3 Norway.

And if I sound a bit anti UK here its because if things get any more 1984 over there George Orwell will actually claw his way out of his grave and say "told you so".

 

[Hero in a half shell]

The 'Libel reform' push to stop people coming here to sue scientists who call out your non medical, unproven ridiculous quackery.

Ooh? Do tell. I almost got a warning from work the other day for laughing at somebody asking if we sold homeopathy kits...

To be fair, I thought he was taking the piss.

You should have directed him towards the bottled water section.

On Topic: This is just an awful thing to happen to this guy. The police overstepped the mark on this one. Someone earlier in the thread pointed out that they shouldn't have gone straight to the 'arrest and charge' stage of affairs. A background check, or reading the rest of his Twitter feed, would suffice to establish anything suspicious about him.

With something like Twitter that people can broadcast their every bowel movement, there needs to be some legislation to deal with the fact that people will make unsuitable jokes about illegal activities that they actually never have taken part in, and if the law has no policies to deal with such situations then this will just be the first in a very long line of victims whose lives will be ruined over such insignificant things.

 

[TwiZtah]

I like the notion that the police thinks that Al-Qaeda will poke Obama on Facebook before they attack.

 

[Penguinis Weirdus]

The punishment is over the top for this case, but in the UK since the start troubles in the 60s we've had to take anything that could be a bomb threat seriously, my parents still get twitchy if they see unattended luggage on a bus or train.
At my college they was pillock who rang the college on parents night saying he'd planted a bomb and the coppers had to hunt him down/ evacuate the college (it turned out it was a hoax btw). The tweet that he put up was stupid and he shouldn't have done it on a service that can be seen by anyone with an internet connection, and kept it to himself. He didn't have to tell the world that.

Everytime the police/security forces fail to stop a bombing, we hear the line why didn't you do enough to stop them?. Do you really want their answer to be "Well it was on twitter so we thought it was a hoax"
And to those saying "Oh freedom of speech doesn't exist/ is bad in the UK" that's nonsense as in the UK you can say it (unless it contravenes hate speech laws) but you have to face consequences for saying it

 

[Evilpigeon]

At least back in the day the IRA had the courtesy to call first. Terrorists these days just post a flyer somewhere on the internet and hope the foot traffic will stop to read it. Guess they've more important things to do, like actually blowing shit up instead of talking about it all the damn time to drum up attention.

White guy terrorism. Nearly an entire English/Irish thing.

We;ve got the whole equal opportunity thing down to a tee.

 

[Burst6]

The punishment is over the top for this case, but in the UK since the start troubles in the 60s we've had to take anything that could be a bomb threat seriously, my parents still get twitchy if they see unattended luggage on a bus or train.
At my college they was pillock who rang the college on parents night saying he'd planted a bomb and the coppers had to hunt him down/ evacuate the college (it turned out it was a hoax btw). The tweet that he put up was stupid and he shouldn't have done it on a service that can be seen by anyone with an internet connection, and kept it to himself. He didn't have to tell the world that.

Everytime the police/security forces fail to stop a bombing, we hear the line why didn't you do enough to stop them?. Do you really want their answer to be "Well it was on twitter so we thought it was a hoax"
And to those saying "Oh freedom of speech doesn't exist/ is bad in the UK" that's nonsense as in the UK you can say it (unless it contravenes hate speech laws) but you have to face consequences for saying it

So the only thing the police can do is immediately throw him in prison without actually investigating if he's actually planning on doing anything? We should take all innocent people who make one bad joke and just ruin their lives? This isn't some guy ringing up the airport and saying there's a bomb. This is one guy, out of the millions of people in the UK with a twitter account, making a small joke that only his followers could hear.

And I'm trying to understand what you mean by that second paragraph. To me you're basically saying "well you CAN say what you want, but we can throw you in jail if we don't like what you say". That's not freedom of speech, that's the opposite of freedom of speech.

 

[Penguinis Weirdus]

The punishment is over the top for this case, but in the UK since the start troubles in the 60s we've had to take anything that could be a bomb threat seriously, my parents still get twitchy if they see unattended luggage on a bus or train.
At my college they was pillock who rang the college on parents night saying he'd planted a bomb and the coppers had to hunt him down/ evacuate the college (it turned out it was a hoax btw). The tweet that he put up was stupid and he shouldn't have done it on a service that can be seen by anyone with an internet connection, and kept it to himself. He didn't have to tell the world that.

Everytime the police/security forces fail to stop a bombing, we hear the line why didn't you do enough to stop them?. Do you really want their answer to be "Well it was on twitter so we thought it was a hoax"
And to those saying "Oh freedom of speech doesn't exist/ is bad in the UK" that's nonsense as in the UK you can say it (unless it contravenes hate speech laws) but you have to face consequences for saying it

So the only thing the police can do is immediately throw him in prison without actually investigating if he's actually planning on doing anything? We should take all innocent people who make one bad joke and just ruin their lives? This isn't some guy ringing up the airport and saying there's a bomb. This is one guy, out of the millions of people in the UK with a twitter account, making a small joke that only his followers could hear.

And I'm trying to understand what you mean by that second paragraph. To me you're basically saying "well you CAN say what you want, but we can throw you in jail if we don't like what you say". That's not freedom of speech, that's the opposite of freedom of speech.

If that is the message I seem to be saying. Then let me say no. What I'm saying is this:

People can say what they want on any public forum. However they need to know that they must face the consequences of saying it (but any legal entitlements you have remain should it go to court e.g. right to a fair trail etc). E.g. I posted my original post to this topic and now must re-explain my argument because of ambiguity within my statement.

What was saying was that UK police and security forces take anything that could be construed as a bomb threat seriously. They should investigate it, legally and should it be a bad joke he should receive the proverbial slap on the wrist for a stupid joke (a warning or a fine). I think that this did go too far, and I think the punishment in this case doesn't fit the crime.

Though which bit of my post says I believe the police should through in jail without trial or investigation I can't see, all I said I have to take it seriously.

 

[Olrod]

He should have used more hyperbole.

If this isn't sorted within a week I'm using my Acme Death Ray to destroy the world!

 

[Project_Xii]

Whoooooooooooooops. That's gotta sting. Feel bad for the guy, even if I do despise Twitter and the people who post a constant stream of crap on it.

This bothered me too, do you not have a £ symbol on your keyboard Adam Gauntlett? GBP1,000 just looks weird. It's like putting USD1,000...

Err... no. I know us Australians do not, and I'm sure the American's don't either. We have $ symbols on our keyboards, because that's the currency we use. So it's much easier to say GBP then bothering to track down, copy and paste a pound symbol each time.