Internet pranks or Internet crimes?

“David Kernell was sentenced to prison today for one year and one day as a result of his hacking into the Yahoo account of Sarah Palin during the 2008 Presidential Election. Kernell’s lawyer had hoped for probation, describing the actions of the then 20-year-old college students as “a prank that spun out of control.”

Paul Chambers lost his appeal in a U.K. Crown Court this week, as he sought to overturn his conviction for “improper use of public electronic communications network.” Chambers, when learning that his local airport was closed, Tweeted that it had better reopen or “I’m blowing the airport sky high!!!” - something described as simply “a foolish prank.” /—/”

» Internet Pranks or Internet Crimes?

”/—/ That would have been the end of it. But Mr. Chambers’s impulsive outburst led him down a long and unexpected path, turning him into both a convicted criminal and a cause célèbre for Twitter users and free-speech advocates in Britain and beyond.

/—/ The actor and Twitter enthusiast Stephen Fry offered to pay his court bills. Other users began raising money for a new appeal. And on a new and wildly popular trending topic, #IAmSpartacus (a homage to the Kirk Douglas movie in which rebel slaves in ancient Rome refuse to betray their leader, Spartacus, confusing the enemy by claiming that they are all Spartacus) people began defiantly expressing their solidarity with Mr. Chambers by reposting his offending Twitter message or by threatening to blow up other, random, things. These included Downing Street, the courtroom, the town of Doncaster, Gatwick Airport, Robin Hood the person, the White House, the Basingstoke Hockey Club, “everyone,” “my garage,” some balloons, and NBC (if it canceled “The Event”).

/—/ It was a fluke, really, that brought Mr. Chambers’s stray Twitter message to the attention of the authorities. An airport manager doing a search on Twitter for Robin Hood Airport-related items on his home computer saw the message a few days later and reported it. A few days after that, five police officers arrested Mr. Chambers at work, interrogated him for eight hours and seized his computers and phones.

“Do you have any weapons in your car?” they asked, Mr. Chambers told The Guardian this fall.

“I said I had some golf clubs in the boot,” or trunk, he responded, “but they didn’t think it was funny.””

» Briton Loses Twitter Case, but Wins Following

chirp chirp

Lord_Voldemort7 Lord Voldemort 
#thingsthatpissmeoff Nothing. I’m a fucking ray of sunshine.

CurtisRx Curtis Rx 
Halloween never lasts long enough, I vote that we make Christmas Halloween too.

inky Liam 
Clamping down on music I rarely listen to, to free up space. So I’ll have more room for music I rarely listen to.

PandaBurrito Jimmy Gomez 
That Davey Havok dude is a girl. It’s okay to have those feelings #tweetyour16yearoldself

Lord_Voldemort7 Lord Voldemort 
#imoneofthosepeople who shouldn’t be classified as “one of those people.” I’m a unique fucking snowflake.

Lord_Voldemort7 Lord Voldemort 
Backstreet Boys & New Kids on the Block are doing a tour. Did we timetravel to the 90s? ‘Rose was such a bitch leaving Leo on that iceburg’.

Lord_Voldemort7 Lord Voldemort 
It’s the day after Halloween. I wonder how many people woke up in the morning feeling like P Diddy & dressed like a slut….

milkkore Josh 
I only trust TrueCrypt to encrypt my embarrassingly large collection of adorable kittens pictures.

A mess of recently favorited tweets

Lord_Voldemort7 Lord Voldemort 
#thingswomenshouldstopdoing Tiger Woods.

FakeAPStylebook Fake AP Stylebook 
When writing about Kanye West, please realize that you’re just encouraging him.

aedison Avery Edison 
I manage to avoid self-esteem issues by not having any self-esteem.

Lord_Voldemort7 Lord Voldemort 
I don’t care what you look like, it’s what’s inside that I can’t stand. 

CurtisRx Curtis Rx 
I Buried Mommy #sadchildrensbooks 

CurtisRx Curtis Rx 
So Your Daddy’s In Prison #sadchildrensbooks 

CurtisRx Curtis Rx 
101 Crimes To Commit Before You Can Be Tried As An Adult #sadchildrensbooks 

CurtisRx Curtis Rx 
My Son The Sociopath #sadchildrensbooks 

TranquilMammoth Hunter Burgan 
It might be time to buy a chainsaw.

CurtisRx Curtis Rx 
This poison tastes funny, I think it’s gone bad!

CurtisRx Curtis Rx 
When Twitter is over capacity I revert back to the original beta version of Twitter—smoke signals.

CurtisRx Curtis Rx 
I remember having a “facebook” back before it was popular—a 17th century occult medical text bound in the tanned hide of a real human face!

CurtisRx Curtis Rx 
They say an apple a day keeps the doctor away, I prefer to use a harpoon gun & electrified fencing.