{"id":93637,"date":"2012-06-29T09:53:18","date_gmt":"2012-06-29T09:53:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=8943"},"modified":"2012-06-29T09:53:18","modified_gmt":"2012-06-29T09:53:18","slug":"edwina-currie-paul-chambers-twitter-joke-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=93637","title":{"rendered":"Defend Edwina Currie!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Paul Chambers, the man at the centre of the &#8220;Twitter Joke Trial&#8221;, has had a torrid two-and-a-half-years since he joked that he would blow Robin Hood airport &#8220;sky high&#8221;. He was back in court on Wednesday. This Al Jazeera report sums up the issue nicely.<\/p>\n<p><object id=\"flashObj\" width=\"420\" height=\"267\" classid=\"clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000\" codebase=\"http:\/\/download.macromedia.com\/pub\/shockwave\/cabs\/flash\/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0\"><param name=\"flashVars\" value=\"videoId=1709469340001&amp;playerID=1513015402001&amp;playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAmtVJIFk~,TVGOQ5ZTwJYzP5l-b5uZA0wXezQXHPxp&amp;domain=embed&amp;dynamicStreaming=true\" \/><param name=\"base\" value=\"http:\/\/admin.brightcove.com\" \/><param name=\"seamlesstabbing\" value=\"false\" \/><param name=\"allowFullScreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"swLiveConnect\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowScriptAccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"src\" value=\"http:\/\/c.brightcove.com\/services\/viewer\/federated_f9?isVid=1&amp;isUI=1\" \/><param name=\"flashvars\" value=\"videoId=1709469340001&amp;playerID=1513015402001&amp;playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAmtVJIFk~,TVGOQ5ZTwJYzP5l-b5uZA0wXezQXHPxp&amp;domain=embed&amp;dynamicStreaming=true\" \/><param name=\"allowfullscreen\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"allowscriptaccess\" value=\"always\" \/><param name=\"swliveconnect\" value=\"true\" \/><param name=\"pluginspage\" value=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/shockwave\/download\/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash\" \/><embed id=\"flashObj\" width=\"420\" height=\"267\" type=\"application\/x-shockwave-flash\" src=\"http:\/\/c.brightcove.com\/services\/viewer\/federated_f9?isVid=1&amp;isUI=1\" flashVars=\"videoId=1709469340001&amp;playerID=1513015402001&amp;playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAmtVJIFk~,TVGOQ5ZTwJYzP5l-b5uZA0wXezQXHPxp&amp;domain=embed&amp;dynamicStreaming=true\" base=\"http:\/\/admin.brightcove.com\" seamlesstabbing=\"false\" allowFullScreen=\"true\" swLiveConnect=\"true\" allowScriptAccess=\"always\" flashvars=\"videoId=1709469340001&amp;playerID=1513015402001&amp;playerKey=AQ~~,AAAAmtVJIFk~,TVGOQ5ZTwJYzP5l-b5uZA0wXezQXHPxp&amp;domain=embed&amp;dynamicStreaming=true\" allowfullscreen=\"true\" allowscriptaccess=\"always\" swliveconnect=\"true\" pluginspage=\"http:\/\/www.macromedia.com\/shockwave\/download\/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash\" \/><\/object><\/p>\n<p>Anyway, in spite of his woes, Paul hasn&#8217;t lost his sense of humour, as demonstrated on Twitter last night. Former Conservative minister Edwina Currie, discussing the case on Twitter, <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Edwina_Currie\/status\/218437050255413248\">wrote<\/a>: &#8220;I&#8217;m blowing the airport sky high&#8221; is not a metaphor. Can be construed as a threat. [Chambers] was a damn fool, paid dearly for it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Clear cut then: making what are obviously jokey &#8220;threats&#8221; on Twitter is the action of a damn fool. But it didn&#8217;t take long for damn-fool Chambers to dig up this tweet from Edwina Currie herself: &#8220;oh I&#8217;d shoot tax exiles! When they need high quality health care they&#8217;re back in the UK double quick. Never make connection&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Surely a threat? Read the full exchange at <a href=\"http:\/\/storify.com\/rgarner\/edwina-currie-s-comedy-connections\">Russell Garner&#8217;s Storify<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>This is funny, but it does illustrate the whole problem of the Twitter Joke Trial: everyone uses over-the-top language, and we often express our anger, outrage and frustration with words alluding to violence. What&#8217;s happening to Paul Chambers could happen to any of us, even Edwina Currie.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Padraig Reidy<\/strong>: Defend Edwina Currie!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[14631,2255,2940],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93637"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93637"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93637\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}