Public support for the TwitterJokeTrial - UPDATE
On YouGov's daily poll yesterday we asked about the "Twitter Joke Trial" - the prosecution of Paul Chambers who made a flippant comment on Twitter about blowing up Robin Hood Airport after getting fustrated by its closure, and ended up being hauled before the courts and prosecuted.
Rather to my surprise, 52% of people thought it was right that Paul Chambers was prosecuted for the comment, with only 36% opposed. This, of course, contrasts strongly with the huge swell of support Chambers has received on Twitter itself.
Looking at the cross breaks in the survey, things become clearer. Amongst under 25s support for Chambers is solid - only 22% of people think it was right to prosecute him, with 61% thinking it was wrong. Compare that to people over the age of 60, who overwhelmingly think it was right he was prosecuted (by 71% to 21%).
I suspect people who use Twitter or have a good idea of what it is would have recorded much lower support for Chambers' prosecution. It hindsight it would have been nice to do a cross break by people who use Twitter, though past research suggests it would have been an extremely low percentage, even on an internet panel like YouGov's. All the same, it's a good reminder that people using social media do not always represent the views of the general population very well.
UPDATE: Several people queried this poll because when we reproduced Paul Chambers' quote in the survey we took the swearing out (we try not to swear in surveys because of respondents who don't like it - a representive sample of the UK will include people who find swearing offensive). A couple of people said to me that the "Crap!" at the start of Paul Chambers tweet changed the context of it and made it much more flippant. So.... we asked it again, exactly the same as before, but with the "Crap!" at the start.
In the event, it appears it did make a difference.. Whereas before 52% had said they supported Chambers's prosecution, with the missing word added back into the survey support for his prosecution fell to 44%, with 43% thinking it was wrong to prosecute him.
The sharp differences in attitudes across the generations remained. People under 25 were strongly against Mr Chambers' prosecution, with 56% thinking it was wrong and only 23% backing it. Amongst people over 60 the picture was reversed - 60% backed the prosecution, while only 30% was wrong.
