Twitter storms have been in the news recently with the end of the #twitterjoketrial and Tom Daley. I go through my thoughts on a few of these gates
Muamba-Gate
OFFENDING TWEET
“LOL. **** Muamba. He’s dead!!!”
OFFENDING TWEETER
Liam Stacey, 21, Student
Fabrice Muamba is the 23 year old Bolton footballer who collapsed mid game of a FA Cup Quarter Final vs Tottenham on March 17.
Fabrice was the latest in an increasingly long line of fit footballers to succumb to a shocking collapse after the deaths of Marc-Vivien Foé and Phil O’Donnell.
The tweet although in bad taste and the reaction to it should be enough to have shamed Mr. Stacey but not be the end of the punishment. The sentence of 56 days in prison surely could have been a community order possibly working in a heart care centre or charity to show the pain suffered by victims and relatives.
#twitterjoketrial
OFFENDING TWEET
“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!!”
OFFENDING TWEETER
Paul Chambers, 28, Trainee Accountant
This trial finished this week in the High Court and is the most ridiculous trial to have ever happened (maybe over-exaggeration a tad but if you can think of one feel free to comment below or direct me).
An irate delayed airport traveller (can anyone imagine such a creature) finds an airport shut (one named after a fictional being) and for the amusement of his small band of followers comes up with a witty ‘threat’ (only it’s not a threat because it’s a joke against an inanimate object).
Almost everyone has laughed at a terrorist joke and this one made me titter and even the staff saw it as no threat. But in today’s culture of covering and litigation (Grrrrr) they had to refer it up the chain as a part of the incident report. Then the spoilsports at the DPP and Karazzzzy Keir Starmer thought this case was in the public interest. Surely a public inquiry or at least an answering to parliament is needed by Keir to ascertain which interest was being served.
Diver-gate
OFFENDING TWEET
“You let your dad down i hope you know that.”
“i’m going to find you and i’m going to drown you in the pool you cocky tw*t your a nobody people like you make me sick.”
OFFENDING TWEETER
Reece aka Rileyy_69, 17, Student
I’m no great fan of enfant terrible Tom Daley, to me he’ll always be the guy who had a hissy fit and abused Blake Aldridge and then mucked up his dive blaming Aldridge again in Beijing.
However he does not deserve to be bullied for the loss of his father, a loss which will have been all the more galling since he was a coach and mentor so Daley lost more than a parent.
This young man (Reece/Riley) swings from angry to apologetic quicker than you can say 71.28. It seems awful like he had saved (or at least tried to) his hide when he apologised, that he really was just an attention seeking idiot but when he renewed his attacks it seemed like an angry young man who has no control over his temper.
There can only be one fitting punishment and it isn’t the warning. It’s like the first case community service for a charity that does cancer work to show this ‘funster’ that cancer is no jokey matter
Conclusion
Well twitter is great for mini-debate and quick responses. If I want the headlines or to see what people I’m interested are doing I hear it from them (or their publicity machines and it’s not at all obvious when that’s happening WINK WINK).
In these three cases the law has been inadequate. The judges in the twitter joke trial had it right when they 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.”
The first two cases all come over as empty bombastic banter where a joke is kind of expected. I believe that ‘punishment’ in the case of Liam Stacey is more of a reparative ‘punishment’ rather than reactive and Reece/Riley quite clearly has a temperemental agenda so the punishment needs to be seen as a punitive step hence the work for a cancer charity which I think a few months on a cancer ward and I’m sure he’ll think before mocking one of the many touched by cancer.
References
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter_Joke_Trial
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/blackberry/p.html?id=1720838
rosswilliamquinn 