A 27-year old accountant who had been found guilty of sending a menacing electronic communication is now moving to challenge the conviction in court. Paul Chambers, who had posted a message on the social network, Twitter, to the effect that he would blow apart an airport, is going to be represented by prominent human rights lawyer, Ben Emmerson.

The basis of the challenge on the conviction is the determination of the question whether section 127 of the Communications Act was applied correctly. The defense is considering Chamber’s case to be an experimental case since the act has never been applied to a wrongdoing committed on a social network platform.

David Allen Green, the accused’s solicitor outlined the key points of their case as being; what comprises a menacing communication, the level of intent required for a commission of the wrong and the determination of whether Chamber’s message was conveyed by means of a public electronic communications network.

Thousands of Twitter users were enraged over the decision of Doncaster Crown Court to uphold Chamber’s original conviction and embarked on a ‘I’m Spartacus’ campaign by retweeting Chamber’s original message. The campaign traces its origin from a famous scene in the 1960s production which shows slaves standing up one by one to claim the gladiator’s identity so as to protect him from being discovered.
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