Paul J. Chambers losses his Twitter case (and a whole lot more)
“Robin Hood Airport is closed,” Mr. Chambers, then 26 and a financial supervisor, said to his 690 followers [on Twitter], who included the woman, known on Twitter as @crazycolours. “You’ve got a week to get your [expletive] together, otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”
For those who never heard about Paul Chambers’ story, his tweet cost him $4,800 in fines. During the case, the judge also “icily lectured the courtroom about the impropriety of sending Twitter updates during the case”. This gained him a lot support on the internet and the “tweetosphere”. Stephen Fry also got in on the protest.
I find the conclusion of the case to be sad and unfortunate, but I don’t think the law can take social ‘internet’ media so seriously any more. I think things will have to change soon enough. People won’t stand for it anymore.
“I am going to blow up the entire universe with my giant spaghetti bomb,” another said.
Someone else asked, referring to the abbreviation for “laughing out loud,” “If I put ‘lol’ at the end of every tweet, will that protect me from prosecution?”
