The strange tale of Robin Hood and the Twitter terrorist

Davey Winder
Monday, 18 January 2010 15:47

Business IT - Security

Be careful what you post on Twitter, the terror police have no sense of humour.

Terrorism isn't funny, and that's official. Making jokes about bombs while on an airplane is probably not the best way to express your sense of humour, I'd have to agree.

However, posting a message on Twitter to your mates which says that you will blow the place up unless the local airport reopens in a week (after snow closed the place) so your travel plans don't get disrupted would seem fairly trivial in the overall war-on-terror-inspired hysteria scheme of things.

Yet one poor sod discovered that even Twitter is not safe from the lack of humour police. While nobody wants YouTube bomb making videos left unchecked, you might expect an obviously tongue-in-cheek Twitter rant to escape unharmed. Think again.

Paul Chambers was due to travel in just over a week when he discovered that his, and funnily enough mine, local airport was closed courtesy of the bad weather. Frustrated that this might mean his plans were scuppered by a bit, OK a bloody great load, of snow he posted his rant on Twitter.

His tweet actually said "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!!" Which, to be fair, is not very funny but then neither does it rank right up there as far as terrorist threats go. It certainly does bring a new perspective to Twitter bombing though.

Sadly, that's not what the police thought as Mr Chambers was arrested at work a week later under the UK Terrorism Act and held for seven hours of rigorous questioning. He was released on bail while he waits to hear of he is to be charged on 11th February with 'conspiring to create a bomb hoax', but has also apparently not only been suspended from his job pending an investigation but also banned for life from the Doncaster based Robin Hood Airport.

Mr Chambers told The Independent "I would never have thought, in a thousand years, that any of this would have happened because of a Twitter post".

So there you have it, the thought police are apparently reading your Twitter posts and don't have a sense of humour or, for that matter, perspective. It's a good job I stopped myself from Tweeting a joke with the punchline of 'does my bomb look big in this' then...