Dutch Teen Arrested for Trolling American Airlines with Twitter Threat
The teenage girl who made a prank terrorism threat to American Airlines on Twitter over the weekend has reportedly been arrested at her home in Rotterdam, The Netherlands.
The Dutch 14-year-old, who goes by Sarah on Twitter, posted this obvious trolling attempt on Sunday:
American Airlines quickly responded that it had contacted the FBI and forwarded them Sarah's "IP address and details." It's unlikely that they could have obtained Sarah's IP so quickly—doing so would require cooperation from Twitter, which has been protective of users' identities in past trolling cases and usually asks to see a warrant.
Neither the FBI nor American Airlines was involved in the teen's arrest by Dutch police. She apparently turned herself in for making a false report after police identified her.
"We're not in a state that we can communicate any state of charges at this point. We just thought it was necessary to bring this out mostly because of the fact that it caused a great deal of interest on the Internet," a Dutch police spokesman told Business Insider.
"I wanted to be famous," the teen wrote on Twitter, "But I meant like Demi Lovato famous, not Osama bin Laden famous."
Update: After the "success" of Sarah's prank, Southwest Airlines responded to a copycat troll this morning.
@twerkcunt The safety of our Customers and Employees is our top priority. Your info had been given to the appropriate authorities.
— Southwest Airlines (@SouthwestAir) April 14, 2014
