At one point the #IAmSpartacus stream was moving so quickly in Tweetdeck that the tweets were flashing by faster than cars tearing down some freeway.

Clearly a lot people have sympathy for Paul Chambers, the 27-year-old accountant, who yesterday lost his appeal for jokingly tweeting his girlfriend he would blow Robin Hood airport up, but it should also serve as an object lesson of thinking before you tweet.

“Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You’ve got a week and a bit to get your shit together otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!!”.

Yes that was the tweet from back in January and this case has dragged on all year.

And while it is thoroughly ridiculous for someone to be convicted for something that was so clearly a joke, it is worth remembering that these are serious times and there is less room for jokes about bombs.

Pause for a moment and imagine the outrage if his joke had actually come to pass and a parcel bomb had been sent to Robin Hood Airport (which is bizarrely not in Nottingham Robin Hood country but in South Yorkshire) and someone had been hurt? It could have played out like that.

That said, once it had been established that Chambers was simple a young guy who was a little quick to tweet he should have been let off, his conviction and his fine quashed, after he had served his purpose as a public warning that the police and courts will take such bomb hoaxers seriously, #IAmSpartacus.

Maybe there was a menacing tone to the tweet as Judge Jacqueline Davies said, but again once it had been established that there was no intent she should have shown more judicial sense and it should have all cost so much less. As this case, and that tweet, has cost Chambers much. He lost his job and had costs awarded against him.

That’s clear from the very passage of Chambers’ controversial prosecution. He was not prosecuted under terror of bomb hoax legislation, but under a law aimed at nuisance calls originally designed to protect women working as telephonists at the Post Office. I mean seriously.

So this is a two way object lesson. It is a lesson for anyone who uses social networks, be it Twitter or Facebook, that you really have to think before you tweet. Seriously do it.

But secondly, the viral outpouring should also serve as lesson to the authorities that the public will not take kindly to such unfairness and over the top reactions. We can see it’s a joke and you should too.

The hashtag #IAmSpartacus is a wonderful piece of social media play as thousands copied Chambers and sent it trending around the world. Who doesn’t like Spartacus and like to be reminded of the solidarity that his fellow gladiators showed as they all proclaimed “I am Spartacus”?

So hats off to @christt who started the Twitter wave following months of support in the Twitter community with people commenting on his case with the tag #twitterjoketrial and high-profile tweeter Stephen Fry offering to cover the cost of any eventual fines.

All it took was for @christt to tweet last night: “I think we should all tweet Paul Chambers’ original joke, Spartacus style. Thousands of us. Would that work? #twitterjoketrial”.

There’s some convergence here around the question of what constitutes a joke or a threat as the #Iamspartacus case comes in the same week that Conservative councillor Gareth Crompton was arrested after tweeting: ‘Can someone please stone Yasmin Alibhai-Brown to death? I shan’t tell Amnesty if you don’t. It would be a blessing, really.’ He was bailed after questioning but has been suspended indefinitely from the Conservative party.

So will these two cases make you watch what you say in social media?

@sookio also contributed to this post.