I honestly don't know how I feel about this

[andrewducker]

Man makes joke about blowing up an airport, is now in danger of going to jail.

The problem being that I'd have no problem with someone making that joke in their own home, or with a bunch of mates, who would know the context - but when you post on the internet you're sharing with millions of people who don't know whether you're being serious or not.

Comments

[hawkida.livejournal.com]

I think that the tone of the message came across perfectly well in the tweet and that anyone taking it seriously is a bit daft.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

Wikipedia have a great attitude to rules. They treat all rules as specialist cases of "don't be a dick" and go to great pains to stress that nobody should follow a rule just for the sake of it. In this case, the CPS is clearly being a dick.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

I disagree. They have a duty to apply the law as written, in all cases. Otherwise you end up with one law for 'our sort of people' and another law for everyone else. The problem here clearly lies with a law so broad it could reasonably encompass that tweet...

[iainjcoleman.livejournal.com]

No, the CPS has a duty to decide whether a prosecution should go ahead, based on the likelihood of conviction and considerations of whether a prosecution is in the public interest.

I don't think this prosecution passes the public interest test. The man's tweet merits no more than a stern ticking off.

[meihua.livejournal.com]

You're right that the CPS shouldn't be racist. But they also shouldn't be dicks. In this case, they're being dicks. If the Tweeter (with the same message) had been Muslim, and the CPS had brought a case, I wouldn't know whether they were being racist, dicks, or a combination of the two.

To me...

[meaningrequired.livejournal.com]

I think its a bit like posting about the company you work for. You have to have some level of responsibility for what you say.

I wouldn't joke publically on the internet about my place of work unless I made it very clear it was a joke, or public protected it.

[woodpijn.livejournal.com]

I think it's a stupid reaction.

If the police read a tweet like that and genuinely aren't sure if the guy is serious or not - and I think it's reasonably obvious he's not, but never mind - then maybe they have cause to investigate. Talk to him, maybe search for explosives. But if they don't find anything, then drop it, believe him that it was a joke.

Actually I can't tell whether they're saying to him "we still think it was a serious threat", or "we know it was a joke and we're punishing you for making such a joke". I'm not sure which is worse.

I agree with most of the comments on the Register.

One of the commenters says he's just re-tweeted the original message. I guess it could go viral and have thousands of people repeating it. That could be interesting.

[marrog.livejournal.com]

I'm with this one I think. If he'd made a random, unprovoked comment then maybe, but in this situation it's like me saying on my FB: "If I don't get a cup of tea soon I'm going to kill everyone in the world" and then being arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to commit mass genocide.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

The offence is that he sent "by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character" ... in this case menacing. I'm struggling to find the message menacing myself as it's so obviously meant in jest. But there's no requirement as far as I can see for the threat to be serious, it could be intended as a joke so long as someone is potentially menaced by it.

I wonder why he's pleading guilty ...

[zz]

The offence is that he sent "by means of a public electronic communications network a message or other matter that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character"

regardless of this context, i disagree with that being an offence.
for this context, i agree with the grandparent comment.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

regardless of this context, i disagree with that being an offence.


Oh, me too. Typical of an anti-terror offence; gets justified as a law necessarily to stop crazed fundamentalists terrorising the population - gets used to clobber some poor sap who neither intended or managed to be even mildly disconcerting, but who can be fitted into the offence if it is interpreted as widely as possible.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of a case back when Bush was president; someone said in her lj that she hoped he died of an aneurysm and was turned into the FBI. They decided she wasn't a threat but she's permanently in their records. That drove me crazy. Aside from it being a flippant comment, she wasn't even making a threat herself, just hoping something bad would happen to him. Arrrrrgh.

I'll agree that this guy was incredibly stupid and needs to take responsibility for what he says, and that a reprimand or perhaps a fine would be in order. But jail? No way, not when he manifestly isn't a threat.