One Year of Hard Labor for a Tweet

For all the time I complain about someone putting something terrible on Twitter, like how their latest trip into the bathroom went, I forget how lucky I have it that I can make fun of that and not get hurt by anyone.

That’s a retweet from Chinese activist Cheng Jianpang. Because of that tweet she was detained and sentenced for a year of “Re-education through labor.”

Wow.

I whine a lot about how terrible people’s tweets are (because they are), but I can’t imagine ever putting someone in jail for a retweet. Actually, I can imagine doing that if I were the supreme dictator of Twitter and because I’m evil, but that’s not the point.

We can call out bad tweets, chastise their authors and holding them to a better standard, but if we jailed everyone who tweeted something negative, ever, then what would be the point?

It’s news like this that makes me glad I live in a society when I can be a twitter shitter and not be jailed for it.