{"id":93643,"date":"2012-07-26T16:29:23","date_gmt":"2012-07-26T16:29:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/?p=8994"},"modified":"2012-07-26T16:29:23","modified_gmt":"2012-07-26T16:29:23","slug":"twitter-joke-trial-appeal-judgment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/?p=93643","title":{"rendered":"Twitter Joke Trial: Appeal judgment due tomorrow"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>An appeal decision in the <a title=\"Index on Censorship - Twitter Joke Trial\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/tag\/twitter-joke-trial\/\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter Joke Trial<\/a> is to be handed down by Lord Chief Justice at the Royal Courts of Justice tomorrow morning [27 July].<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Index on Censorship - Defend Edwina Currie\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/2012\/06\/29\/edwina-currie-paul-chambers-twitter-joke-trial\/\" target=\"_blank\">Last month<\/a> Paul Chambers appealed his conviction for having jokingly tweeted in January 2010 that he would blow Nottingham\u2019s Robin Hood airport \u201csky high\u201d if his planned flight to Northern Ireland to visit his now-fiancee would be affected by the weather.<\/p>\n<p>He was found guilty at Doncaster magistrates court of sending a message via public electronic communications that was &#8220;grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character, contrary to the Communications Act 2003&#8221;. Chambers was fined \u00a3385, and ordered to pay \u00a3600 in costs. He also lost his job.<\/p>\n<p>The trial has become a landmark case for freedom of expression in the UK, highlighting\u00a0the tension between the legal system and advances in social communication. Chambers has had the support of some leading British comedians, including Graham Linehan,\u00a0<a title=\"Twitter - Stephen Fry\" href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/stephenfry\" target=\"_blank\">Stephen Fry<\/a> and <a title=\"Twitter - Al Murray\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/ajhmurray\" target=\"_blank\">Al Murray<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Writing for Index on Censorship in November 2010, comedy writer <a title=\"Index on Censorship - Twitter Joke Trial: They just don't &quot;get it&quot;\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/2010\/11\/11\/twitter-joke-trial-paul-chambers-graham-linehan\/\" target=\"_blank\">Graham Linehan<\/a>\u00a0said:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This is the kind of case that would make me refuse jury service. It obliterates my confidence in the judicial system. Why should I let people who don\u2019t \u201cget it\u201d have any power over me or anyone else?<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019re trying to evolve here, and the people who don\u2019t get it are slowing us down. If they can\u2019t keep up, they need to get out of the way.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Comedian and broadcaster <a title=\"Index on Censorship - A tale of two tweets\" href=\"http:\/\/blog.indexoncensorship.org\/2010\/11\/11\/twitter-george-compton-yasmin-alibhai-brown\/\" target=\"_blank\">Paul Sinha<\/a> added:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The irony is that all over the worldwide web, anonymous internet warriors are only to happy to incite hatred and murder, and surely this is where the appropriate resources should be directed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<h4>David Allen Green provides some useful background to the two-and-a-half year saga\u00a0<a title=\"New Statesman - The &quot;Twitter Joke Trial&quot; returns to the High Court \" href=\"http:\/\/www.newstatesman.com\/blogs\/david-allen-green\/2012\/06\/twitter-joke-trial-david-allen-green\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/h4>\n<h4>Follow the story on Twitter using the hashtag <a title=\"Twitter - Twitter Joke Trial\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search\/%23twitterjoketrial\" target=\"_blank\">#TwitterJokeTrial<\/a><\/h4>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>An appeal decision in the Twitter Joke Trial is to be handed down by Lord Chief Justice at the Royal Courts of Justice tomorrow morning [27 July]. Last month Paul Chambers appealed his conviction for having jokingly tweeted in January 2010 that he would blow Nottingham\u2019s Robin Hood airport \u201csky high\u201d if his planned flight [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":57,"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":[1194,14123,117,7358,2255,2940,7350],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93643"}],"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\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.indexoncensorship.org\/newsite02may\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}