The Great Twitter Airport Bomber – My Thoughts
photo credit: danhodgett
One story doing the rounds on Twitter & various other social networks is the story of Paul Chambers, 26, who a couple of weeks ago during the big freeze tweeted the following:-
“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!!”
Innocent enough, but it ended up with him being arrested on terrorist charges by the East Midlands Police. Whilst the press took the normal ground they normally take of “how much health & safety and anti-terrorist BS can you get? He wasn’t going to blow up any plane!”, Twitter took a more neutral stance – that he should’ve expected it.
My thoughts are leaning towards the latter – after all I’ve had trouble at airports before now. Returning from Japan I was stopped going through security at Bangkok Suvarnabhumi Airport. My crime? Having in my carry on bag two key rings that were shaped like samurai swords. Admittedly they looked sharp, but couldn’t cut butter. The punishment? A few questions & an emptied bag. The fact that rest of my bag contained a bunch of Nintendo cuddly toys saved me from a full cavity search. I’ve never been so thankful of Yoshi in my life.
Forgive my xenophobia, but one advantage I had over the Doncaster Twerrorist (not a typo, deliberate) is that I don’t really look like a terrorist. Twitter is a different story. Anybody can upload whatever they want as their avatar. Anybody could hide behind a picture – after all – do you really think that half of twitter are willing to take photos of themselves performing fellatio on other people? It’s quite plausible that the twitter avatar would look different from the person in question. Of course, would a terrorist thread be broadcast over Twitter? Probably not, but you don’t fuck about with airports.
So from me, the chap learnt an important lesson most people know about the interenet – everything is public. Yes it’s probably a little extreme, but after the Christmas Bomb Threat in the United States, I can imagine the world police are a little more alert on certain channels. That would naturally include Twitter.
What are your thoughts? Over reaction for the police? Or did the Doncaster Bomber have what’s coming to him? Leave your thoughts in the comments below!
Tags: airports, terrorism, twitter | Comments: 6 Comments
Rhys Wynne, the author of this blog, is a 20 something web designer from Colwyn Bay. 
On the one hand, he totally should have expected it. There have been terror-related arrests made before now after teens texted dodgy song lyrics to one another. Common sense tells you not to use a public venue to make joke terrorist threats – it’s just daft!
On the other hand, he clearly was joking and a quick chat in his house and a slap on the wrist might have done the trick – no need for such extreme action!
I don’t get your referral to the Twitter avatar – he wasn’t arrested over Twitter, so the avatar is irrelevant, surely? Plus saying that you do or don’t look like a terrorist is a bit of a grey area in my opinion.
I know he wasn’t arrested over Twitter, but the point I was trying to make was that it’s far better way to judge people in person (like I think I was) than over a social network, if that makes sense
I think that this silly twat should have expected it … airports and planes are prime terrorist zones … going back to the Lockerbie attack and New York attacks as prime examples, as well as many, many other plane attacks – I think the police/government (whatever) were right to make the arrest.
We HAVE to be on the ball, the police and government get so much flack for not being on the ball over incidents that actually follow through and cause mayhem, that they need to be switched on. Even if this Twatter guy was pissing about, at least the British powers were onto him, as a potential threat.
Its a sad fact that we need to be this switched on and alert … but in order to save lifes, we cant take chances or risks.
I would say that the guy was innocent enough to not expect this and definitely things shouldn’t be this extreme. Police could have just warned him by doing a thorough check and posted about this publicly — I’m sure media would have covered that as well.
you actually have an airport named after robin hood!!! lol hilarious
Over reaction or the world we live in? Imagine if it was a serious threat…. And it went un dealt with.
100% right though brother and I think it’s the same effect when people read a text message, you can’t get the tone of the voice or body language so it can come across the wrong way.
Good post brother