Twitter arrest in UK: Hope it never comes to this here. (1 Viewer)

[IntenseSaint]

News from The Associated Press

While the tweet may have been in poor taste, I am amazed the youth was arrested over his tweet.

 

[Sarcastic]

Dorset Police said early Tuesday that a 17-year-old man was arrested at a guest house in Weymouth "on suspicion of malicious communications" in relation to Twitter threats made against Daley.

If there were threats, he may have been arrested for that, as opposed to just insulting the guy. Maybe some DMs were involved? The tweet quoted in the article was hardly a threat, but that doesn't mean there weren't any.

 

[Dragon]

The key word in the case is harrasment. Nobody would have written about this case if he had mailed hundreds of menacing letters using the postal service.......

Funny thing about social media - lots of people seems to forget at that they are responsible for their writings even though it may appear that they are writing annonymous. They can be found and writing hundreds of menacing tweets to someone is harrasment just as if they had written them all down on paper and mailed it.

He will probably only get a fine but at least he will learn that even tweets are subject to harrasment and slander laws.

 

[IntenseSaint]

The key word in the case is harrasment. Nobody would have written about this case if he had mailed hundreds of menacing letters using the postal service.......

Funny thing about social media - lots of people seems to forget at that they are responsible for their writings even though it may appear that they are writing annonymous. They can be found and writing hundreds of menacing tweets to someone is harrasment just as if they had written them all down on paper and mailed it.

He will probably only get a fine but at least he will learn that even tweets are subject to harrasment and slander laws.

Personal threats should absolutely taken seriously. But being in trouble with the law for insulting on tiwtter??

 

[Dragon]

Personal threats should absolutely taken seriously. But being in trouble with the law for insulting on tiwtter??

Would you feel the same way if you recieved 200 offending and insulting letters ?? Using twitter does not absolve the writer from accountability. It is just another media. In some ways it could even be considered worse because it is public.

 

[IntenseSaint]

Would you feel the same way if you recieved 200 offending and insulting letters ?? Using twitter does not absolve the writer from accountability. It is just another media. In some ways it could even be considered worse because it is public.

So this one twitter user was responsible for all 200 offending letters?

 

[Sarcastic]

Oh crap. Maybe Fletcher Mackel was right.

 

[Dragon]

So this one twitter user was responsible for all 200 offending letters?

If ONE person sent someone 200 offending and insulting letters using the postal service I think the recipient would contact the police... JMHO

 

[IntenseSaint]

If ONE person sent someone 200 offending and insulting letters using the postal service I think the recipient would contact the police... JMHO

Letters are going to a physical address, meaning you know where that individual lives. We are talking about twitter here.

Are you saying you think it is ok for the police to arrest a person for being insensitive on social media?

 

[Dragon]

Letters are going to a physical address, meaning you know where that individual lives. We are talking about twitter here.

Are you saying you think it is ok for the police to arrest a person for being insensitive on social media?

No- just harrasment and slander and similar as defined by the law.

What I am saying is that the same laws should apply equally to both the printed and the electronic words.

 

[KikkomanSauce]

I actually hope they start doing that here. That way I wouldn't have to deal with YouTube comments...

 

[Symbiote]

One more reason I am glad I don't have a twitter account, or facebook for that matter. Seems every other day there is some story of pure ignorance regarding those two websites constantly.

 

[Dragon]

News from The Associated Press

While the tweet may have been in poor taste, I am amazed the youth was arrested over his tweet.

The truth is beginning to emerge. The tweet in the article is NOT what he was arrested for....

After the initial tweet, a number of abusive messages were sent between Twitter users, including threats of violence which appeared to have been posted by the user Rileyy_69.

Police warn teen over Twitter abuse of UK diver Tom Daley - CNN.com

You can't threaten someone with physical violence - not even on social media - without the risk of being arrested or fined..

 

[El Caliente]

Tom Riddle?