A Drunk Man’s Tweet Earned Him 150 Hours of Community Service

Be careful what you post on social media after a night out!

Grossly Offensive

A man in the United Kingdom has come under fire for a Tweet that he posted after a night out drinking.

If you've ever woken up to a bevvy of notifications and/or texts about something that you posted the night (or morning) before and felt immediate shame or embarrassment, it probably, hopefully wasn't something so bad that a government agency would find it so "grossly offensive" that you wind up with community service, or worse.

Usually you'll probably just have to delete the post from social media, maybe text, call, or message a few people to apologize, and then it'll be a distant memory, or joke.

It seems that there are situations, though, if the post was offensive enough, that simply deleting it won't suffice. It happened to one man in the United Kingdom, who subsequently received a hefty punishment, and the post was only up for around 20 minutes.

According to Gizmodo, a 36-year-old man from Glasgow, Scotland felt the heat last February following the death of Captain Sir Tom Moore, who was a British army veteran who had previously helped raise over $30 million for healthcare workers during the pandemic by doing 100 laps around his garden (back yard in the UK) on his 100th birthday.

How to get arrested for social media post

After hearing about his passing, and in an alleged drunken state, the man decided to tweet “the only good Brit soldier is a deed one, burn auld fella buuuuurn.”

As you can imagine, even in said drunken state, it didn’t take long for him to realize that was not a good idea at all, as it was deleted around 20 minutes after it was first sent out.

While not being up for long, someone took note and it was brought to the attention of authorities, who decided to charge him with violating Section 127 of the UK’s Communications Act, which criminalized posts deemed “grossly offensive or of an indecent, obscene or menacing character.”

The man's lawyer argued that he had been drinking and under stress when he sent the tweet out. That didn't stop the court from sentencing him to 150 hours of community service.

Now, I don't know for sure that this would necessarily constitute authorities getting involved in the United States (it might!), but best not to try your luck. In other words, just don't be an jerk!