Twitter user taken literally, terrorism attempts assumed

After poor winter weather threatened to destroy Paul Chamber's holiday plans, he made the mistake of tweeting "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!!"

The comment which was intended for friends and Twitter followers ended up in the hands of the police who arrived at Paul Chamber's home on January 13th to arrest him under the Terrorism act.

Paul Chambers later told news sources that he was arrested under the suspicion of conspiring to create a fake bomb. He was then questioned by authorities for more than seven hours.

According to Mr Chambers, the authorities involved in the interrogation had never heard of Twitter and he had to repeatedly explain the concept to them. However Paul's explanations barely managed to dampen the authority's suspicions, they went on to confiscate his Laptop, iPhone and home computer.

While many are quick to laugh at the authority's decision to arrest Mr Chamber's for his Twitter comments, Yorkshire police were equally quick to point out that this is the age we live in and any comments relating to terrorist threats at the airport need to be taken seriously.

Mr Chambers is understood to be the first Twitter user to be arrested in the UK in what free speech activists are regarding as a serious threat to free speech rights within the UK.

And even though the diligence of the police should be admired, Yorkshire officers may have to spend some time learning about the fact that due to their size and popularity, social networking sites such as Twitter have a low intellectual barrier to entry and comments from the majority of its users, be they about terrorism or not, are generally best ignored.