‘I am Spartacus’ campaign goes viral


13 Nov 2010

The stg£3,600 fine levelled against a Twitter user who was arrested for a menacing tweet after he missed his flight has sparked an ‘I am Sparticus’ campaign on Twitter which has gone viral.

27 year-old Paul Chambers, who lost an appeal against a conviction of menace, and had his fine of over stg£1,000 bumped up by over stg£2,000, joked publicly about blowing up an airport with a woman he met online and was ordered to pay a fine which currently stands at stg£3,600.

Avid Twitter users have been watching the case with interest and the hashtag #twitterjoketrial is among Twitter’s top trending topics worldwide.

But now a whole new campaign has been born literally over the past night around the hashtag #iamspartacus in tribute to the Stanley Kubrick film where Spartacus’ friends refused to allow a fellow warrior be singled out for Roman ‘justice’.

The Tweet in question – “Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your sh*t together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!” – was deemed to be a menacing threat to security and actor and writer Stephen Fry – who has 1,939,427 followers – tweeted quickly after the man’s fine, posting, “My offer still stands. Whatever they fine you, I’ll pay”.

Thousands of Twitter users who believe the sentence meated out to Chambers was too harsh have tweeted the #iamspartacus hashtag overnight with some of them calling for the creation of a fund to pay Chambers’ legal fees.

Spartacus film