An English man was found guilty of sending a “menacing electronic communication” after joking in a tweet that he would blow up a nearby airport. After the airport had been closed due to a snowstorm, Paul Chambers took to Twitter to vent his frustrations and said that he wanted to “blow it sky high.” He was charged under the UK’s Communication Act of 2003, which imprisons and fines people for such offenses.
However, because the context was not of a serious nature, the judge dropped the charges, stating, “If the person or persons who receive or read it, (the message) or may reasonably be expected to receive, or read it, would brush it aside as a silly joke, or a joke in bad taste, or empty bombastic or ridiculous banter, then it would be a contradiction in terms to describe it as a message of a menacing character.”
For today the Internet wins, and Twitter may continue on with its constant hyperbole.
Related posts:
Views: 0