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Twitter tirades test limits of freedom of speech

LONDON What's a tweet, between friends? The law says sometimes

it's a threat.One man thought he was just bantering with his pals when he jokedabout blowing an airport sky-high. Another was reacting to a radiophone-in when he mused about stoning a journalist to death.Because they made their throwaway comments on Twitter, both are inlegal trouble.Their cases have outraged civil libertarians and inflamed the debateabout the limits of free speech in a Web 2.0 world. The Internetincreasingly makes private jokes, tastes and opinions available for public consumption, blurring the line between public and private in away that has left the law struggling to keep up."I think people don't have any idea of the potential legal ramifications of things they post on the Internet," said Gregor Pryor, a digital medialawyer at Reed Smith in London. "Anything you post on Twitter cancome back and haunt you."Paul Chambers found that out with a vengeance. The 27-year-oldtrainee accountant was convicted and fined after tweeting in January

that he'd blow up Robin Hood Airport in northern England if his flightwas delayed.Chambers who lost his job and faces several thousand pounds(dollars) in legal costs said Monday that he has instructed hislawyers to take his case to the High Court, setting the stage for a major test of free speech online."Probably to the detriment of my mental well-being, I am appealing thedecision as best I can," Chambers tweeted Monday.

Chambers is already an online cause celebre. After he lost an appealearlier this month, thousands of Twitterusers repeated his offendingmessage "Robin Hood Airport is closed. You've got a week ...otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!" They added the tag "I AmSpartacus" a reference to the 1960 movie epic in which the titular hero's fellow rebels all assume his identity in a gesture of solidarity.To many Twittizens, the outrage is obvious Chambers was no threatto anyone, just a frustrated traveler blowing off steam.

"It's worrying," said Evan Harris, a former British lawmaker and free-speech campaigner. "The judgment seemed to misunderstand that

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101123/ap_on_hi_te/eu_britain_twitter_troublehttp://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101123/ap_on_hi_te/eu_britain_twitter_trouble

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something said across Twitter was not a serious threat. This is not themode of choice for any suicidal jihadist."Twitter, he said, "is like chat in a pub."

"There is sarcasm in the pub," he said. "There is sarcasm on Twitter,which is understood by everyone on Twitter but not by that judge."But others argue that it's not so simple.The judge who rejected Chambers' appeal, Jacqueline Davies, said that"in the context of the times in which we live," with an ever-present threatfrom terrorism, Chambers' message was "obviously menacing."Another ill-fated tweeter has received less sympathy than Chambers.Gareth Compton, a Conservative councilor in the English city of Birmingham, was arrested this month on suspicion of sending an"offensive or indecent message" after tweeting an invitation for a

journalist to be stoned to death a comment he insists was a joke.The subject of his tweet, newspaper columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown,reported him to police. He was arrested and questioned, but has notbeen charged. He later released an apology for his "ill-conceivedattempt at humor."Sympathy for Compton was relatively muted. Liberal Twitterites mayhave felt less comfortable supporting a Tory politician who'd attacked a

Muslim woman.But Harris said Compton's arrest is equally unfair. He said Compton'smessage "Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown todeath? I shan't tell Amnesty if you don't" was "obviously not a seriousmenace."Legal experts agree that the law is not keeping up with technology andthe ways it is changing communication. Chambers was convicted of sending menacing electronic communication, under legislation originally

introduced to protect telephone operators from indecent calls.Many people have learned that unguarded online comments can beembarrassing. Just ask Peter Broadbent, the Church of England Bishopof Willesden, who apologized Monday for greeting news of theengagement of Prince William and Kate Middleton with a tweet abouttaking a "republican day trip to France."Broadbent apologized and said he'd been unwise to get into a debate"on a semi-public Internet forum," but his boss, the Bishop of London,

said Tuesday that he was being suspended from public duties "untilfurther notice."

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Around the world similar cases, though in different contexts, are testingthe limits of what can be said online.In China, where the Internet is restricted and Twitter is blocked, a

woman was recently sentenced to a year in a labor camp for "disruptingsocial order" by retweeting a satirical message urging Chineseprotesters to smash the Japan pavilion at the Shanghai Expo. Her supporters said the retweet was meant as satire.In the United States where the First Amendment right to freedom of speech is seen as a beacon by British civil libertarians the NationalLabor Relations Board is challenging a case in which it claims anambulance worker was fired for criticizing her boss on Facebook. Theboard's lawyer said such comments are "the same as talking at thewater cooler," and so protected by law.Pryor said such cases show that the legal balance between freedomand responsibility is still being worked out.Julian Glover, an editorial writer with the Guardian newspaper, thinks itwill be a while before things settle down.The Internet, he wrote recently, is a "life-changing invention that willtake time to develop civilized rules of its own" just as automobileswere followed by highways and then, after time and pileups, by speed

limits."The Internet is nearing its speed-limit stage," Glover wrote. "We can'tguess where this will end, only that the skirmishes have only justbegun."