Tumble DC 25

Marginally better than silence

96 notes

Twitter jokes on trial: how one tweet made a man a criminal

shorterexcerpts:

nolagrrlnyc:

inthefade:

“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!“

And with that tweet, the life of Paul Chambers took a very wrong turn.

This is the story of Paul Chambers (boyfriend of crazy colours), whose offhand - if ill-conceived - joke has led him down a five month path of frustration, which ended yesterday when he was found guilty. He now - for a tweet that Robin Hood airport itself dismissed as a non credible threat - has a criminal record. His job is over. His life is in ruins.

I wrote this at True/Slant today in the hopes of giving this story a little more publicity. At the risk of sounding self serving (I’m doing this for Sarah and Paul and to highlight the ridiculousness of the outcome of the trial) please pass on the link to my T/S story today.

Jesus Christ.  Overreact much, police state America?

  1. cripesonfriday reblogged this from crazycolours
  2. crazycolours reblogged this from openareas and added:
    Thanks Michele, for a very well written and sensitive post. The support Paul has got has been uh-maz-ing and definately...
  3. gchap reblogged this from openareas
  4. amadcap reblogged this from openareas
  5. froth reblogged this from angryoldcoot and added:
    Ugh, people seriously need to watch making stupid jokes like that. It’s ridiculous, yes, but face the fact that people...
  6. mr-7 said: Guilty? Oh FFS.
  7. coyotesqrl reblogged this from froggeek
  8. froggeek reblogged this from openareas and added:
    Must read. If you don’t already follow Michele, you’re most likely doing Tumblr the wrong way.
  9. tjpytheas reblogged this from joeschmitt
  10. jonathan-cunningham reblogged this from shorterexcerpts and added:
    Jesus Christ. Overreact much, police state America?
  11. shorterexcerpts reblogged this from nolagrrlnyc