I saw an article earlier this week about a girl who had tweeted a fake bomb threat to an American airline company as a joke. This was apparently a bad idea because she was tracked down and arrested for questioning.
For airline companies safety of passengers is probably first priority above all else. Even jokes about threats are taken seriously. They can’t just assume that something won’t happen just because its posted on the internet and real threats wouldn’t make it so obvious. The last time this happened a user on the imageboard 4chan posted that he was going to shoot people at a mall. Nobody believed him but the next day he actually shot people at the local mall. Writing anything online requires careful rhetoric, as it could be taken more or less seriously than the author intended.
Update: A plethora of twitter users have been bombarding American Airlines with similar terrorist threats after the girl was arrested for her tweet.
I saw this on the news actually. It’s just plain stupid. My only thoughts were, “Well.. Our generation in a nutshell right?” I have no idea how people find this find or defend the girl. And worse yet when EVERYONE does it. Granted sent to the FBI is a little overkill, it’s still just stupid.
I can’t believe after all that’s happened since 9/11 someone would be THAT stupid. Who in their right mind would think of this as a joke? This kind of threat is far more direct than a 4chan post.
Humans do stupid things, it’s true, but this is just…I have no more words.