Slashdot Mirror
Teenager Arrested In England For Criticizing Olympic Athlete On Twitter
An anonymous reader writes "A teenager from Dorset, England was arrested for sending a Twitter message to Olympic athlete Tom Daley saying: 'You let your dad down i hope you know that.' Police arrested the 17-year-old boy as part of an investigation into 'malicious tweets' after Daley and his teammate missed out on a medal. Daley's father died from cancer last year. While it is rarely used and the police have not indicated whether they are pressing charges, the Communications Act 2003 s.127 covers the sending of improper messages. Section 127(1)(a) relates to a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character. Sean Duffy was convicted and sentenced earlier this year for similar comments. I look forward to tens of thousands of arrests across England over the next few days as all public remarks which may cause offense, regardless of their target, are investigated by the law."
According to the Guardian, another (since deleted) tweet threatened Daley with drowning, but the law doesn't require threats of violence for an arrest to be made.
England doesn't have the first amendment
I was thinking of joining Twitter, but it doesn't seem like a good idea now...
Indeed, when someone says, "I'm doing this for my [dead] dad" then fails to do it, it's only reasonable to point out that they let down their [dead] dad.
That's no more offensive than the insinuation that some corpse gives a flying fuck about someone's ability to jump into a pool.
he's trying to live up to the perceived desires of his father
That's one interpretation of what he said, but even if true, it's also true that he failed to win gold, so if his father desired a gold for him, he's let his father down. Simple fact, and just what's the problem with highlighting it?0
Me, I'm brutally offended by the suggestion that dead people have feelings. I feel sickened by the idea that I must say only nice things about dead people. Fuck 'em. Not literally, that's illegal.
So when someone says that they're doing something for a dead person, I don't think it's at all inappropriate to point out they fucked up when they fuck up. You don't want your dead relatives in this conversation then you shouldn't bring them up in the first place.
Daly started the whole dead dad thing, he shouldn't complain when other people continue it.
As noticed by the anon responders to my post, I lack empathy. I know this. I also haven't bothered using twitter to send messages to Daly because frankly, I don't give a shit. Well done on doing as well as he did, but don't go pretending I should actually feel bad because his dad died, he made a commitment he couldn't keep and someone called him out on it.
Wow, what a sycophantic piece of work you are. You must be British, trying to explain with some pretzel logic as to how this acceptable, that way you don't have to look at yourself for suffering this to happen. Of course, blame the kid, instead of the system. That way you can be a complete coward and sleep at night, knowing that you don't have to face the facts that your country has become another fascist regime.
Take the Red Pill.
And you must be American, thinking the American way is the one true way, and the rest of the world should do as you do.
And yet, statistically, the chances are you don't even have a passport. You haven't a clue what alternatives to the American way look like.