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Twitter is unBritish - we need to bring back old-fashioned reserve

  Twitter has been causing upset on and offline this week. Paul Chambers, a 27-year-old trainee accountant, lost his appeal against his conviction for placing a “menacing” tweet on the site, and will now have to pay a £1,000 fine, around £2,000 in costs, and have a criminal record. Back in January, when his local airport was closed by snow, threatening his plans to fly to Ireland to visit a woman he had met online, Chambers wrote: “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!” Within hours of Chambers hearing his appeal had failed, the hashtag #iamspartacus, a reference to the film Spartacus, in which dozens of bystanders pretend to be the eponymous hero to protect him, had become the most popular UK trending term on Twitter; an act of defiance and protest against his conviction.