Monday 18 January 2010

An Overreaction to Twitdiculous Twaddle!

OK, this wasn't the post I planned on writing today, but this news story made me jump up and down with both hilarity and anger, so I felt I should write about it.

For those of you who read the news story I linked to, you can ignore this quick summary of the story, but for those of you too lazy to do so, it is as follows: Man got angry with airport closure due to snow, man posted anger in form of a sarcastic threat on Twitter, man got arrested, interrogated, bailed and suspended from his job.

Hmm... Can you say overreaction??

The thing that bemuses me is the following paragraph:

"Mr Chambers said the police seemed unable to comprehend the intended humour in his online comment. "I had to explain Twitter to them in its entirety because they'd never heard of it," he said. "Then they asked all about my home life, and how work was going, and other personal things. The lead investigator kept asking, 'Do you understand why this is happening?' and saying, 'It is the world we live in'.""

Now, to me, the weird thing is not that the policemen involved had never heard of Twitter (As I am aware that there are people who do not keep up to date in the world of the internet and social networking, either through choice or ignorance) but it's the fact they seemed "Unable to comprehend the intended humour in his online comment". Had none of them ever had a bad day? Sworn at a driver? Sarcastically threatened someone in a vague way, without that person being anywhere near?

And as for the bit about "The lead investigator kept asking, 'Do you understand why this is happening?' and saying, 'It is the world we live in'."" Do you really think that terrorists, proper terrorists, would post a message on their own page on Twitter, threatening an airport that they'll blow it up in a WEEK AND A HALF'S time???

As far as I understand terrorists (and I am no expert mark you) they either want to blow stuff up and injure lots of people - so they give no warning, or they want to blow something up and not kill people, so they give like an hours warning. Not over a week.

And the most ridiculous thing about this story? "He has been bailed until 11 February, when he will be told whether or not he will be charged with conspiring to create a bomb hoax. In the interim, detectives have confiscated his iPhone, laptop and home computer. "

Firstly, Charged with Conspiring to create a bomb hoax?? Conspiring with who?? He offered the information on a two-way conversational medium, where anyone could have asked him whether he was serious... and secondly, they've confiscated all his stuff, presumably so he doesn't do it again, but why?? Who seriously thinks this is a good use of public funds to prosecute him??

It's a worrying state of affairs when you can't express yourself through sarcasm without being arrested... looks like I'm screwed!

Next time on Brawny's blog - A dramatically revealing article... (Well, sort of. It's not that dramatic. Or that revealing. But I'm hoping it's good...)

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