Twitter Joke Causes Terror Alert

Twitter might seem like an ideal place to post clever one-liners, dry humour or plain undiluted polemics, but 26 year old Paul Chambers learned that some jokes might land you in hot water. Chambers, an avid Twitter user from Britain, had been waiting to board his flight at Doncaster-Sheffield’s Robin Hood Airport when a snow storm hit and caused the delay of most departures. In his frustration, Chambers began micro-blogging and in one of his tweets he issued an ultimatum: either the Sheffield hub gets its act together, or the Twitter fan will consider “blowing the airport sky high.” Chambers almost certainly even forgot about his ominous tweet, until British anti-terrorism police came knocking on his door seven days after the post, in order to arrest him.

That one tweet landed Chambers in jail for seven hours, during which time investigators questioned him about his threat to blow up the Sheffield airport. Chambers argued that all of this was simply a joke, born out of his own frustration during the snowstorm, and that he is the “most mild-mannered guy you can imagine.”

But in the end, Chambers’ tweet had consequences beyond his arrest and interrogation. The 26 year old Twitter fan has been banned in perpetuity from Robin Hood Airport. While in the future Chambers he may still turn to micro-blogging for solace during trying air travel experiences, he certainly won’t be doing it from Sheffield. According to a report in The Independent, Chambers is the first person to be arrested in Britain for posting threatening or inappropriate posts on Twitter.