Learning the "Power of the Internet" (the Hard Way III)

Another hapless Tweetor learns an important life lesson:

Some things, you just don't say online:

When heavy snowfall threatened to scupper Paul Chambers's travel plans, he decided to vent his frustrations on Twitter by tapping out a comment to amuse his friends. "Robin Hood airport is closed," he wrote. "You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!!"

Unfortunately for Mr Chambers, the police didn't see the funny side. A week after posting the message on the social networking site, he was arrested under the Terrorism Act and questioned for almost seven hours by detectives who interpreted his post as a security threat. After he was released on bail, he was suspended from work pending an internal investigation, and has, he says, been banned from the Doncaster airport for life. "I would never have thought, in a thousand years, that any of this would have happened because of a Twitter post," said Mr Chambers, 26. "I'm the most mild-mannered guy you could imagine."

More Learning the Power of the Internet (The Hard Way): Part I and Part 2.

And a similar, but perhaps more sinister, episode on Facebook leads to charges in Malaysia.

- Garry J. Wise, Toronto

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