Announcement: the Orwellian, Minority Reportian, Matrixian age of the thought police is here.

Remember a time when the biggest risk of using social media was having your boss stumble upon your Facebook photos from the weekend? Those days are long gone and now your online activity could turn you into a convicted criminal.

On 13 January 2010 Paul Chambers answered a knock at his front door to find some stern policemen outside. The first thing he thought was that something terrible had happened to a friend or relative, until they handed him a print out of his Twitter page.

The 26-year-old was arrested under the Terrorism Act and made to endure a seven hour interrogation, following which his laptop, iPhone and home computer were seized. His crime: a Twitter update in which he jokingly threatened to blow up Doncaster’s Robin Hood airport if his flight was delayed due to snow.

He tweeted: “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!!”

Chambers was released on bail until 11 February pending further investigations. He is the first British man to be placed under arrest in a Twitter related incident.

This is funny but it’s also a teaching moment.

The digital age is slowly but surely impacting traditional notions of privacy and freedom of speech as our actions and correspondence are increasingly monitored by powers that be. Previously our various social media personas were considered just that: online versions of ourselves through which we talked nonsense to our mates and played with imaginary farms or fought imaginary zombies and werewolves.

But now it seems that our internet activity and our real lives have become so intertwined that what you do and how you communicate online directly impacts your life outside the computer. Surveillance by powers that be (federal authorities, bosses, parents, spouses) has reached a whole new level as our online personas are no longer taken with a pinch of salt.

We have reached a point where our social media activity says something about us, sometimes necessitating self-censorship. So if a slightly off-centre kind of humour tickles your fancy then by all means express yourself but be careful and try your best to avoid using ‘bomb’ and ‘airport’ in the same sentence.

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