The American writer HL Mencken once said that a puritan is someone with the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.  Similarly, there will be always someone, somewhere, who will find a certain type of message to be menacing, obscene, indecent, or grossly offensive.  And such people often crawl the web in search of things to be upset by.  A wide interpretation of section 127 will be a licence in future for busybodies to report supposed transgressions; and it will be up to the CPS and the courts to then adopt their “ordinary person” test of whether the offence was committed regardless of whether anyone was ever menaced or grossly offended.

via TwitterJokeTrial and the relationship of criminal law to social media | Opinion | The Lawyer.