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Teenager Arrested In England For Criticizing Olympic Athlete On Twitter

Posted by Soulskill on from the arresting-jerks-on-the-internet-will-keep-police-busy dept.

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.

19 of 639 comments (clear)

  1. Wow... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "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?

    1. Re:Wow... by mordjah · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Crimethink anyone? How dare you say something mean in public! Arrest him!

      --
      "A mind reader? That sounds like sci fi." "Honey, we live on a space ship"
    2. Re:Wow... by 91degrees · · Score: 5, Informative
      Most laws are like that. They rely on a "reasonable person" test. would a reasonable person consider the tweet:

      come on then you cunt i'll stick a knife down your fuckin throat now comeback and stop hiding from me

      or

      do you want me to come to your fucking house now with a rope and strangle you with it

      to be grossly offensive? These were sent to other twitterers and it's probably these that prompted the arrest.

      source: (LiberalConspiracy)

    3. Re:Wow... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Those are adequately covered under other laws regarding intimidation and assault [look it up]. "You let your dad down" is not a threat.

    4. Re:Wow... by i+kan+reed · · Score: 5, Funny

      If anything the new law means a lower punishment for threats made on the internet, because everyone knows internet tough guys never follow through.

      If they did, I'd beat them up.

    5. Re:Wow... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Holy strawman batman! Nobody said anything about "criminalizing thought crimes". People have every right to blurt out all the hateful things they want, but if they give people reason to believe it's actionable (like this tough guy saying he'd drown Tom Daley in the pool), well then, free speech can be a rope you hang yourself with. Being free to say what you want in no way means you should be free of the consequences of your words. If they are hateful, people will respect you less. If they contain threats of murder, people will call the police to come by your house. I see nothing wrong with that.

    6. Re:Wow... by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I think the kid is a real jerk for saying what he said. Now I'm criticizing him in a public space, as I'm sure many other people are in less kinder words. Should I be arrested, because my criticism might hinder him to pursue posting things on the internet?

      We can have a lot of freedom in life, but the freedom to not be offended is not an option. The fact that what you or I say might hurt someone's feelings is not a sufficient reason to prevent us from saying it.

      --
      Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
    7. Re:Wow... by readin · · Score: 5, Insightful

      like in your own home

      The kid isn't being accused of breaking and entering. If he were it would be the athlete facing jail time (assuming the athlete took reasonable steps to defend himself).

      You've got to shift your viewpoint a little if you want to understand what's going on around you. The idea that free speech is the most holy ideal is rubbish.

      It is holy from the standpoint that no one should be forced to espouse a view they find repugnant. It is practical because once we start regulating speech the regulators will make it so we criticize them (it might hurt their feelings or upset the social order if the regulators were criticized).

      This kid chose to reach out into a public place to harass and intimidate someone. If you allow people to be chased out of public light by intimidation and harassment then you wind up with less freedom, as your personal freedoms to pursue things like sports are hindered by those who would hide behind free speech.

      If the athlete saw the tweet, it is because the athlete chose to participate in an extremely public forum. It's not like he was just walking around shopping. He was using a medium design to allow as many people as possible to communicate. If you're going to do that you have to expect some flames no matter who you are. As for the larger question of freedom to walk around in public: someone instantly recognizable, or someone hounded by paparazzi might have case to make for restricting to what extent they should be protected in public from speech. That is indeed a difficult topic - but the answer there is not to put a blanket ban on all speech but to figure out a way to tailor the rules for only the difficult cases. The fact that Johnny Depp can't walk around without attracting a mob should not be the basis for regulating interactions between a lesser known athlete and a teenager. In cases where an individual is really annoying, there are other ways for the public to handle it. For example, as a small business owner I could refuse to hire him. What? That's illegal discrimination? Well, at least I could refuse to sell him anything at my store! Wha..? That's illegal too! Well, I suppose I could tell everyone what a jerk he is because... oh yeah, we just made that illegal. Um well I suppose I could - oh H#ll, just arrest him. Why bother with social pressure when it's so much easier to send him to jail?

      --
      I often don't like the choices people make, but I like the fact that people make choices. That's why I'm a conservative.
    8. Re:Wow... by PRMan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As a Christian and an American, it seems obvious to me that in order to have a free society, both Christians and Atheists must be free to criticize each others viewpoints in the public square of ideas. Otherwise, how does anyone have freedom of religion (or the freedom not to have a religion)?

      I certainly wouldn't want to be arrested for quoting the Bible: "The fool says in his heart, there is no God." And if I want that freedom, I must allow Atheists the same freedom.

      --
      Peter predicted that you would "deliberately forget" creation 2000 years ago...
    9. Re:Wow... by lgw · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No, the soultion for this sort of "harassing" is just learn to ignore people. That's it - that's the entire remedy. People will say deeply offensive things to you in life; adults simply shrug and move on with life, they don't throiw temper tantrums, or ask Mommy to make it stop.

      Stalking is different, but we're not talking about stalking here, but one-off remarks.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
  2. He wasn't arrested for the criticism. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:He wasn't arrested for the criticism. by adam.bower · · Score: 5, Informative

      Yes he did make a threat to kill as I read the tweet and told the athlete to report it to the police.

    2. Re:He wasn't arrested for the criticism. by adam.bower · · Score: 5, Informative

      The source was me reading the tweets and telling the athlete that malicious communications can be reported to the police, the first tweet about the guys dad wouldn't have met the criteria to be malicious in all likelihood, the one threatening to kill would.

  3. Of course by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Might be more to this one... by RogueyWon · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  5. He Did Appear to Make a Threat Actually by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.
    1. Re:He Did Appear to Make a Threat Actually by Essequemodeia · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Fucking hell. I don't know whether I'm proud or ashamed that in America it's not illegal to be an asshole.

    2. Re:He Did Appear to Make a Threat Actually by kiriath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Maybe they arrested him because of his usage of the word "your" instead of "You're".

  6. Re:In days of yore, this was solved differently by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    People had more respect for each other back then.

    citation needed, fuckface