Yer man needed something to save him from himself. He just couldn’t stop; he’d apologise and then abuse someone again and then threaten to kill people. I’d imagine it definitely qualifies as harrassment.

I like Tom daly. Seems like a good kid. I hope he medals in the individual event. He and his dad were very close judging from the recent documentary on TV.

Not so big behind his computer now is he!

why oh why would you be sayin things about his poor deceased father??? the mind boggles at what type of people there are out there. has he not heard about the other idiots that have been nicked for sending abusive insensitive messages on twitter? if the children are our future with idiots like this i think we r pretty screwed… shame on him.

I think he should have to meet Tom Daley and say sorry face to face, lets see how big he is then

It was horrible. I’m not sure weather the young man in question has a mental illness or if he just couldn’t stop himself being so abusive. Either way I couldn’t believe I was reading what was playing out on twitter yesterday.

The only way this kind of thing will stop is if we bring reality into the equation for a while – in what ever way we can.
Because this is the type of behavior that spills over into the kind of cyber bullying that makes a mess of ordinary kids lives – even to the point of taking there own. So if one kid/idiot is pulled out from under the comfort zone of his computer/duvet and his virtual world becomes a real for one for a change, then ‘he’ may see that actions have consequences. Hence I for one don’t use fictitious tags – keeps it real.

Can’t wait to see what this dive critic looks like, spotty and obese no doubt, expert in armchair sports.. Tom Daley is an amazing diver and an amazing kid anyone saying otherwise should try a double somersault dive

I think it’s disgraceful because once people started giving out about what Riley said, he started threatening to kill them too. And looking through what he has been sayin g before all this drama, he seems to be an immature ‘Big Man’ from behind a computer screen. Definitely a few harassment cases in there, before and after the Tom Daley incident.

He was not only abusive to Tom Daley, but, I looked through his tweets for a while and could say with some confidence that he was probably arrested for abusive and threatening behaviour and RACISM. His account has now been locked. Personally I feel that he was a little man sat safe behind a screen thinking he was a big man. After reading his tweets I feel disturbed ( as a father ) that society can produce this kind of person.

if i wrote a death threat on old fashioned,traditional pen and paper.put it in an envelope,put a stamp on it and sent it to my intended target then yes i would be in trouble with law enforcement,and rightly so.dont see why using a more modern technique to do the same thing should seen any differently in the eyes of the law…

No one should be allowed to openly abuse and threaten someone the way that it was done by Riley on twitter. Reading his tweets it was shocking to see the hate this guy had for everyone. If he was sorry for the tweet he sent re Toms father he should have left it at that apology he tweeted and stopped tweeting hate for most of the night.
Most of what he tweeted was not an innocent throwaway comment but abuse. I think in the context he deserves the arrest and hopefully prosecution.

He should be made an example of. It happens so much nowadays and not just ‘small man vs celebrity’ but the likes of cyberbullying especially in schools. Perhaps and hopefully this will reduce it in some way when those who do it realise what you post is public and is the same as the spoken word.

The incredible thing is this kid doubled the amount of followers in about two hours, ending up with with over 40,000. Until people stop giving trolls attention they will continue to spout their silly and vile rubbish, if he had been ignored chances are he would have stopped the silliness. I’m not sure I understand the difference between an “empty and hilarious” and a “full and unfunny” death threat though.

The likes of Twitter and Facebook need to manage and moderate their own services and boot off those who abuse them. Surely I’m not alone in thinking that the legal system has better things to be doing than holding a full arrest, investigation, prosecution and incarceration each and every time a virtual unknown, unstable person lets fly on a social networking service?

Half of this is down to journalists spending all day on Twitter looking for a story instead of researching actual news.

While the behaviour of the Twitter troll is appalling, mean-spirited, idiotic, hare-brained, bitter and cruel, am I the only one thinking that an arrest is taking things too far? There were no threats involved, implicit or explicit, it was not sustained or repeated that it could qualify as harassment…so why is a matter for the police?

The guy in question is evidently a moron, but should the police really be going around arresting mean-spirited morons?

I for one would like to thank Big Brother for raising the chocolate ration to twenty grams a week.

Mob rule is really starting to take hold in UK. somebody says something, the mob go mad and demand action. Police are forced to act and politicians will be asked to condemn it all day. Madness.

I hope all your dead ancestors are proud of you all! (just erring on the side of caution)

People, are you overlooking the fact that a KID has just been ARRESTED for sending a TWEET?

Pete Waterfield’s dad said he was disappointed. I guess it’s safe to assume that, had Mr Daley’s father been alive, he would have felt the same way. I can’t believe anyone can support this arrest – we’ll be living in a nation where people are afraid to tell ‘Your Mom’ jokes, in case the person’s mother is dead.

The British media are obsessed with Tom Daley.

He is a lovely lad and amazing athlete, but the BBC’s obsession with him is ridiculous. After every dive, the camera would stalk him to see just and only his reaction to the score.

Remeber it was Daly that messed up, his partner did a perfect dive

There’s another aspect to this, Riley is 17 immature and not very media savvy, the twitter mob contained many media savvy adults.

http://damoclesbda.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/two-wrongs/

Always another perspective.

What a major over reaction. The guys a troll, nothing more. Look at his profile and you’ll see he abuses everyone and has lots of followers from doing so. Why is it that only when a celebrity gets abused it becomes world news and the police get involved? Do the rest of the mere mortals on twitter not deserve the same protection?

Interesting take on things from @gregcantyfuzion in his blog post about this – Will there be another attack on twitter after this? http://gregcfuzion.wordpress.com/2012/07/31/blaming-twitter-tom-daley/

Horrible thing to say but I arresting him seems a bit much

“Team GB”
Oh dear!

Free Riley!!!! hes done nothing wrong #freeriley

So his Twitter account hasn’t been banned (bonus points for Twitter) & the death threat is there, and it’s as empty & hilarious as I imagined it would be! I love the bit where he goes off on one on Sky News for reporting about him ‘again’… it’s a classic internet troll rant. I’ll cook up a meme today, something like “O RILEYY”?

I’m not generally into a lot of moderating of social networking sites, but Twitter can be a bit of a jungle at times. I know several people who’ve been at the receiving end of some very unpleasant Twitter bullying and it’s not a nice experience. Definitely not for the faint hearted. If kids aren’t mature enough to interact on these sites, they should just avoid them altogether.