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.
"relates to a message that is grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character."
Isn't it nice to have such ambiguous laws that they could use against anyone whenever they please?
It's for the good of the children, lest the terrorists win!
He was arrested as he made a threat to kill the athlete, this doesn't mean any charges will be brought against him. I find it more likely that the Police will give him a severe talking to telling him to stop being a troll or face charges being brought in the future.
The fact that the teenager threatened Daley with drowning is only referenced in a convenient side note. Because that would cause less fear and hysteria than the submitter actually intended to stir up.
When I heard about this story for the first time on the radio this morning, my reaction was essentially "WTF- they're policing untasteful comments on twitter now?".
Having read about it a little more, my reaction mellowed significantly. Actual threats (albeit unrealistic) are just about within what I would consider to be the remit of the police. Of course it would depend on what exactly is done by them about it. Simply arresting and cautioning him would strike me as being proportionate. Any kind of sentence beyond perhaps a small (less than £50) fine would probably not be.
This is a substitute for a clever sig that fits within the maximum number of characters.
I think you parsed that sentence incorrectly.
"the law doesn't require threats of violence for an arrest to be made" - i.e. an arrest can be made even if no threat of violence has been made. If a threat of violence has been made then an arrest can also be made.
I know Slashdot will cover the free speech part of this "case" which is very valid, but I'd like to point out how absolutely classless this teenager is. Hopefully, he will see the error of his ways.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
In days past, this was solved differently. The kid would've had his ass kicked. People had more respect for each other back then. Nowadays, every coward troll can peep out whenever they're bored or feeling malicious. Is this the future we want?
Even the well-known and strongly libertarian political blogger Paul Staines/Guido Fawkes is being a bit cagey about this one. Making death threats via a written, public means of communication is about as far from smart as you can get.
Actually, just noticed that more details of the exchange, including screen-caps of the deleted posts, are available at this blog (along with a bit of commentary, so you can make your own mind up.
The messages sent to Tom Daley were an example of massive douchebaggery, but some of the other tweets on this guys feed look like they could be bullying and fall foul of all sorts of laws.
It's worth pointing out that the idiot in question actually apologised to Tom Daley before he was descended upon by a good portion of Daley's 800,000 followers. It's at this point that @Rileyy_69 began lashing out with offensive tweets and is most likely what he's been arrested for.
Daley himself sparked the whole thing off by retweeting the initial message (which wasn't actually offensive) complete with the sender's username. IMO Daley showed poor judgement there.
There's a reason "Don't Feed the Trolls" is a meme.
This is clearly some 17 year old kid shit talking on Twitter. Just a troll. Getting the police involved is ridiculous, unless he was to continue to do it (i.e., harrassment).
Then again, judging from the other tweets this kid has done, he has some serious problems. Some form of Twitter-Tourettes at least.
Hopefully the police will drop it, but the experience will cause the idiot to grow up. Haha, unlikely.
In other news, Jan Moir of the nasty UK "news"paper the Daily Mail can write things about athletes being bitches without any police getting involved. This is real personal abuse. http://politicalscrapbook.net/2012/07/jan-moir-olympics-marianne-vos-some-bitch-from-holland-lizzie-armitstead/
No, he did not make any threats. You clearly didn't actually read the article. Threats of violence actually are NOT enough to lead to arrest, but asshole-ish tweets are. Read the article before posting such crap.
I can't believe I'm linking to The Huffington Post as a better source but for lack of any other site that is explaining it better, here's a timeline of the tweets.
Here's the tweet in question:
@TomDaley1994 i'm going to find you and i'm going to drown you in the pool you cocky twat your a nobody people like you make me sick
It is listed in the Guardian article but doesn't say it's from the arrested suspect.
My work here is dung.
*stupidest
When you threaten to kill people?
@_ollyriley come on then you cunt i’ll stick a knife down your fuckin throat now comeback and stop hiding from me
@theroycropper do you want me to come to your fucking house now with a rope and strangle you with it
Because, if the Twitter joke trial has taught us anything, it's that there is an important difference between comments made in jest and actual, serious threats against someone's well-being.
Saying "My ideas for the opening ceremony were rejected. I suggested we should crash a burning Jag into Mitt Romney." is clearly not an actual threat to carry out such an action.
Saying "Come on then you cunt, I'll stick a knife down your fukkin throat now comeback and stop hiding from me" can be more reasonably seen as an actual threat, context permitting.
The police have overreacted by arresting him, but the accuracy of the reporting of the incident by the media has been astonishingly poor.
There is a lesson in all this. Don't use social media. Anything you say there will last forever, and will be used against you.
And the flip side is that social media doesn't produce anything worth reading anyway. It is generally poorly written junk. If you want to contribute in a meaningful way, work on Wikipedia or write for Examiner.com. Look at me post junk on slashdot...ugh.
You're right that England isn't covered by American laws. Why should it be? It seems you're yet another typical American who's never been anywhere and 100% believes the propaganda your schools and TV brainwashes you with that US == the world.
I've lived in both countries and you really think people are 'freer' to speak their minds in the US than the UK? Thats laughable.
You need to check your facts too:
Free speech has long been recognised as a common law right in Britain, it also has a statutory basis in Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights which has been incorporated into UK law by the Human Rights Act.
*According to the Guardian, another (since deleted) tweet threatened Daley with drowning.
So, the Slashdot story summary is a completely fabricated pile of shit, with a little explanation on the bottom, after the preceding propaganda already riled up the prejudices and produced a cascade of comments from the usual Salshdot poster who can't even bother to read the story summary, nevermind the story, before commenting in completely contrived, manipulated outrage.
Congratulations Slashdot, you are playing the same game as Fox News: half-truths intended to incite anger, without relevance as to actual truth.
Guy threatened someone with violence, guy arrested. Common sense, end of story. Everything else is bullshit.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The one thing that's puzzling is that according to the article the same tweeter first made a disparaging comment, then apologized, then backtracked and threatened Daley and was abusive to others. That's some odd behavior. Was he high? Is he suffering from bipolar disorder? perhaps someone hacked his account? I don't know
The fact that the teenager threatened Daley with drowning is only referenced in a convenient side note. Because that would cause less fear and hysteria than the submitter actually intended to stir up.
But are the two tweets from the same person? Or did the cops, ehrm, cop out, and went for the first tweeter due to convenience or ignorance?
Check the facts, rewrite the posts that are CLEARLY trying to manipulate you and the readers.
none
Yet at the same time you've unambiguously stated that they are homosexual.
I can see only two ways out of this:
- either you're suggesting that there are no female athletes at the olympics, and that Caster Semenya is merely a little more obvious than most, or
- all Olympic athletes love male chickens.
While the latter may well be true, it feels a little oblique to the discussion at hand.
However, it's still quite beyond me how olympic athletes can be deemed faggots or faggots.
I can only conclude that you are in fact delusional and that olympic athletes represent a broad spectrum of sexual diversity and chicken consumption.