Drunk tweeters beware — aside from the fact that you probably shouldn’t tweet after a night of drinking, if you do it in the U.K. you may find yourself on the wrong side of the law. Depending on the content of your tweet, it could be found to be in violation of Section 127 of the U.K.’s Communications Act.
Section 127 prohibits the spreading of content that is “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character” through a public network for electronic communications. In other words, if any of your social media posts are too mean, they could be illegal. The Verge recently found that the U.K. successfully carries out hundreds of prosecutions of violations of this law every year, although they rarely result in jail time.
This all came into the spotlight recently after Joseph Kelly of Glasgow tweeted, he later admitted that he was drunk at the time, in response to the death of elderly British Army officer Captain Sir Tom Moore. The tweet, which said, “the only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella buuuuurn,” was found by a Lanark Sheriff to be in violation of Section 127. Kelly now faces 150 hours of community service.
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