The British man who was arrested for his bomb joke on Twitter defended himself successfully by holding that the tweet message was a result of “frustration.”
Paul Chambers had his conviction overturned in the landmark ruling and the said the tweet message was posted in frustration after he was unable to catch a flight at the Doncaster Robin Hood airport after it closed because of heavy snowfall. In a milestone ruling, the High Court today upheld his appeal against conviction.
The tweet by Chambers read, “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!”
Chambers said he never imagined the tweet, spread to 600 of his followers, would be taken so seriously, “It was surreal. My world became something else. It’s an important decision as far as social networks are concerned and as far as Twitter is concerned. It has established that there has to be an action that is menacing and is intended to be menacing.”
The three judges who heard the case said, “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.”
Chamber’s bannister John Cooper said, “”It’s a very big decision both nationally and internationally for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people who use Facebook and Twitter.”
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