Picture the scene. You’re chatting away to a friend. You’re excited about going to visit them. Your plane tickets are booked, your bags are packed and there’s only one slight problem.
The airport’s shut.
You’re frustrated, but instead of going out and screaming at passing traffic, you decide to make a joke. Admittedly it’s a bad taste joke, but it’s obvious from the context of your discussion that it is, in fact, a joke.
“Crap! 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!!“
I’d like to personally apologise for the above quote on behalf of the whole FirstFound team, as Judge Jacqueline Davies has ruled that the above Tweet, made by a user called Paul Chambers, is the sort of terrible threat that will have you quaking in your boots.
This is the latest development in what’s been known as the Twitter Joke Trial (#twitterjoketrial), a case which has seen a young man lose his job and face criminal charges for what right-thinking people have called “flippancy”.
The “Twitter Joke Trial”
The heinous crime was committed in January of 2009. Mr Chambers posted the above Tweet as a joke, after snow threatened to cancel his trip to Ireland to meet a fellow Twitter user. The quip was spotted days later by an employee of Robin Hood airport. Who then referred it to a manager. Who then notified the police, despite admitting that airport security didn’t percieve a threat:
“I have heard evidence from the Airport security in the form of Mr Armson that when he saw this posting on 11th January n [sic] he regarded it as a non credible threat.” (from the original case)
Then, as you do when faced with a non-credible threat, the police arrested Mr Chambers, the CPS stepped in and he was found guilty. Not of making a hoax bomb threat (which requires some proof of intent), but of making a “malicious communication” – under a law from the 1930s aimed to protect “female telephonists at the Post Office.”
An appeal was rejected yesterday on the grounds that (stripped of context) the Tweet was sufficient to cause alarm to any ordinary person. Except of course all the ordinary people who have publicly opposed the verdict on Twitter, message boards, letters to newspapers and petitions.
Other “Menacing” Communications
In order to illustrate how strange this point of view is, commentators have presented other statements, stripped of context, that should now lead to public prosecutions:
- “Come friendly bombs and fall on Slough! It isn’t fit for humans now.” – John Betjeman calls for a terrorist atrocity
- “Hang the DJ, hang the DJ, hang the DJ” – The Smiths incite a lynch mob
- “Unleash Hell!” – Russel Crowe is obviously a Satanist
- “Blow the bloody doors off!” – Michael Caine strikes fear into the heart of door owners
Whether or not the Crown Prosecution Service will be taking poets, musicians and film-makers to task is unclear, but one thing is certain. Social media isn’t safe for glib, dark humour.
A Revised Social Media Code of Conduct
It looks like what you say on Social Media sites is now fair game for the CPS. You do not have to Tweet anything, but anything you do Tweet may be stripped of context and used in evidence against you. So be careful. Some people just don’t see the joke.
If you want to find out more about the trial, or about the fund to pay Paul Chambers’ legal costs, visit the Twitter Joke Trial Fund or read this piece from Mr Chambers’ lawyer, a leading legal blogger.
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I think posting a bomb threat a day on hundreds of fake accounts might legitimately cause alarm – the point with the original Tweet here is that it was published under the guy’s real name. Not even the terrorists in Four Lions were that thick.
You’re right though – thousands of people Tweeted threats last night under the hashtag #IAmSpartacus – are taxpayers going to foot the bill for the CPS going after every last one of them?
Joke Trial indeed. It’s quite concerning, where will it end? Are we going to see people hauled before court because of their humorous Facebook status’? And for all the people who retweet or duplicate the bomb tweets, are they to be arrested too?
I could post a joke bomb threat every day on hundreds of fake Twitter accounts, what would the court do then? What if 10,000 people tweet about joke bombs are airports, would be all be hauled in front of court?
It’s all a bit worrying.
I await a court hearing about the comment above.