Twitter Troll Arrested For Abusing & Threatening Olympic Diving Star Tom Daley

A 17-year-old has been arrested in Weymouth after malicious tweets were sent to Olympic diver Tom Daley. The 17-year-old was detained by police in the early hours of the morning in a guest house in Weymouth in Dorset, police said. Shortly after his medal hopes in the synchronised diving 10m platform event when he and his partner finished fourth, Daley reposted a message from a Twitter user named 'Rileyy69', which said: "You let your dad down i hope you know that." Daley responded: 'After giving it my all... you get idiots sending me this...' Daley has spoken fondly of his father, who died last year after a long battle with cancer. Rob Daley followed his son around the world to watch him dive and was present as appeared at the 2008 Olympics at the age of 14.

www.independent.co.uk...


So here we have another "Troll" arrested under the "Malicious Communications Act 1988"
We had the guy arrested for racial tweets after a black football player collapsed on the pitch, we had the other guy arrested for trolling a dead girls memorial page on facebook... and now this.


Obviously what he said was out of order and was totally unnecessary, but should it be illegal?



Here is the law

(1) Any person who sends to another person
(a) a letter, electronic communication or article of any description which conveys
(i) a message which is indecent or grossly offensive
(ii) a threat or
(iii) information which is false and known or believed to be false by the sender or
(b) any article or electronic communication which is, in whole or part, of an indecent or grossly offensive nature,
is guilty of an offence if his purpose, or one of his purposes, in sending it is that it should, so far as falling within paragraph (a) or (b) above, cause distress or anxiety to the recipient or to any other person to whom he intends that it or its contents or nature should be communicated.

(2) A person is not guilty of an offence by virtue of subsection (1)(a)(ii) above if he shows
(a) that the threat was used to reinforce a demand made by him on reasonable grounds and
(b) that he believed, and had reasonable grounds for believing, that the use of the threat was a proper means of reinforcing the demand.

(2A) In this section 'electronic communication' includes _
(a) any oral or other communication by means of a telecommunication system(within the meaning of the Telecommunications Act 1984 (c12)); and
(b) any communication (however sent) that is in electronic form.

(3) In this section references to sending include references to delivering or transmitting and to causing to be sent, delivered or transmitted and 'sender' shall be construed accordingly.

(4) A person guilty of an offence under this section shall be liable on summary conviction to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale, or to both.

What do you guys think?


ETA:

Thanks to Khimbar, new info seems to suggest that he actually threatened Tom Daley and made threats on his life (which would make more sense) and then deleted the tweets.

thedigitalreport.net...


Looking for more sources at the moment.

No, trolling people should not be illegal...... Especially on wide open social networks......

To some extent, Ive always wanted to have a law against idiots. To another extent, I believe this is the slippery slope, before everyone is a suspect. Great thread actually, because it makes you think, of the implications. I know this much. With as many idiots there are on Facebook, we will have to triple the size of the current Prison Industrial Complex !




S&F

Sure the guy is an ass. I'll agree. Bad taste.

I just don't see why law enforcement put the time, money, and effort into cases like this while larger crimes go unnoticed.

Interesting thread !

While people have the right (alegedly) to free speech do they have the right to insult people or write malicious things about them ?

Personally I don't think they do have the right to attack people over the internet or other forms of comunication if their intention is merely to cause hurt or attack someones reputation. To criticise someone is acceptable if the target is demonstartable wrong in an assertion or behaviour. It's a fine line to tread so there must be some kind of legal address for those who feel they've been insulted.

Oh for a civil society i guess.

Doubt if Rileyy69 would have the nerve to say it to this man's face.

Adding the number 69 to a user name is always classy. Bet he is really cool and quite the ladies man.

This article doesn't mention the deleted tweets threatening to drown him or stab him, and shoot someone else which are the ones he was arrested for, weren't they?

'ЯIᄂΣY JЦПIӨЯ @Rileyy_69
“@tomdaley1994 i’m going to find you and i’m going to drown you in the pool you cocky t*** your a nobody people like you make me sick”

thedigitalreport.net...

So the UK, passed a law, that allows other people to get arrested if you are "offended" by their speech?

Is this what I'm reading?

P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C

~Tenth

reply to post by khimbar


If that's the case, that is a little past trolling. Threatening someone is waaaaaaaaaay different than trolling.

reply to post by khimbar




Well I didn't see those?

I found a link to some other offensive ones

atrl.net...

And seeing some of these, he seems to be getting more and more threatening and angry so I KNEW there must be more to the story.

If it was just "You let your dad down" and then he was arrested, that would be pathetic.... but this sheds a whole new light on it.

Thanks for posting that.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
So the UK, passed a law, that allows other people to get arrested if you are "offended" by their speech?

Is this what I'm reading?

P-A-T-H-E-T-I-C

~Tenth

Nope. You're reading it wrong.

He threatened to drown him, stab him and shoot someone else, then deleted them.

I would recommend to anyone with a spare moment to look through the last few days of tweets from this repugnant little scumbag. I came across this character some time ago and his rants are so ridiculously inappropriate, I thought it was a joke account.

There are YouTube videos too, with quite explicit threats.

Regarding the Malicious Communications Act, it is certainly a slippery slope and very subjective - but you can't allow this kind of behaviour - it wasn't just one nasty tweet to Daley, there were a number. I was following events through the night and you could tell that everyone knew he was on the cusp of REALLY messing up...I think the death threats (against Tom Daley and other users) sealed his fate.

What I find interesting is the way this is being reported.

There's little mention of the death threats on any MSM unless you dig deeper and people seem to think he's been arrested for upsetting Daley.

I'm pretty sure this is a deliberate spin on this. What easier way to keep people afraid and cowed that by letting them think that. After all, Twitter and Facebook have become the panopticon of our own making...people on it report and police themselves far faster, and with more vehemence than any government agency could get away with.

Why would they bother to correct than notion? We do all their work for them.

reply to post by khimbar


Where is this? I can't reference it in the story.

But that IS what the law states as listed in the OP. If you are "grossly" offended by somebody's speech, you can have them charged.

That's insane.

~Tenth

Here in America, We have Stalking Laws.......Dont they have those in England?

Heres an example.......

Every year, about 3.4 million people 18 and older are stalked in the U.S., according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, with women three times more likely to be victimized than men. Nearly three in four stalking victims know their offender in some way.

Although it frequently goes unreported and even unrecognized, stalking is often an element in physical assault, rape and domestic violence cases, and also in murder cases such as the recent slaying of Johanna Justin-Jinich, a Wesleyan University student.

Wesleyan Killing Puts New Focus On Crime Of Stalking

Again, many States in America have stalking laws, including emails, as proof of it.

Originally posted by tothetenthpower
reply to post by khimbar

 

Where is this? I can't reference it in the story.

But that IS what the law states as listed in the OP. If you are "grossly" offended by somebody's speech, you can have them charged.

That's insane.

~Tenth

Oh yeah, the law sucks balls, and not in the good way, but he's being done for making death threats.

Here you go.

thedigitalreport.net...

Some might be offensive.

reply to post by sonnny1




Apparently not... they're talking about making it a specific offence

www.independent.co.uk...

what was said was out of order, but if i report a crime guess what, there is never anyone around to come and check. This country is turning into a joke. You watch, have your house broken into and the police if you're lucky will try to get to you in 48 -72 hours, then all they do is give you a crime number. Call somone a t**t and they go into full arrest overdrive

reply to post by tothetenthpower


I wouldn't worry theres American laws that are just as bad just need for it to be either classed as obscene or child porn with intent to annoy, abuse, threaten, or harass another person

reply to post by blupblup


Strange, that England, land of a Billion Cameras, wouldnt have had something on the books.....

But I read the link provided, and they already have laws, in place.

Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994
Malicious Communications Act 1998/Telecommunications Act 1984
Communications Act 2003 - Section 127