A man who threatened on Twitter to blow up Doncaster airport has been found guilty of sending a “menacing electronic communication”. He is thought to be the first person in the UK country to have been arrested for comments on Twitter. He is now appears to be the firstsecond person to be found guilty for being “menacing” on Twitter in the UK (see below).
On January 6 Paul Chambers joked on Twitter “Robin Hood airport is closed,” he wrote. “You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!” He was annoyed that snowfall threatened to delay his plans to travel to Ireland on January 15.
On January 13 the local police came to his house and arrested 26-year-old Chambers under the Terrorism Act and produced a piece of paper, showing him a print-out of his Twitter page.
Although, alas, the Police had never heard of Twitter.
Then again Twitter has heard of them. #twitterjoketrial is now trending on Twitter, producing many “I am Spartacus” type tweets about blowing something up.
We will now add this to the evidence that we are all now living in Minority Report.
Update: Chambers’ case came a few days after this.