Dunno if you guys in the US are up to speed on the Twitter joke trial, a classic collision of new technology, post 9/11 paranoia, witless judges, and a hapless victim. Here’s one of our leading comedy scriptwriters on the warpath back in May.
The conviction was upheld on appeal!
Here’s a geek carefully setting out what’s all stupidly, stupidly wrong about the verdict (h/t Felix Salmon). In the meantime everyone over here is tweeting the text (with hashtag iamspartacus) that got Paul Chambers into the courts, landed him with a fine, and trashed his career.
The protest seems to be widespread. Join in, it can’t hurt. I’m not a big fan of Twitter but it might even be enough to make me emit my first ever tweet.
Paul Tioxon 
PunchnRun 
Externality 
Richard Kline 
ex-PFC Chuck 
Jaap 
shtove 
John 
rj 
Jim Haygood 
fsdg 
Paul Repstock 
Chris 
Posts
The fact that the authorities get worked up over jokes is fairly indicative to me of a desire to Do Something for the sake of being seen as Doing Something. There seems to be little realistic risk assessment in the process; e.g., what is the correlation between jokes made about terrorist attacks and actual terrorist attacks? (Most like correlation: zero; as distinct from, e.g., suicide, which is often preceded by relevant half-jokes.) Is there any indication that preventing ill-advised jokes over terrorist attacks actually enhances security? (Again, most likely: no.)
I hereby propose a new legislation covering Stupid Jokes, that provides for a maximum penalty of a $100 fine for any extremely ill-advised joke, which would cover the authorities’ need to be seen as Doing Something while leaving the ill-advised jokesters in question with a lesson in what should and should not be said in public, but no further penalty.