The curse of Twitter

A tip: Julian Burnside refused to defend my own free speech, but may have to now apologise for his own - at least to Tony Abbott if not also to me. Gone now, but not forgotten. UPDATE He endorses an abusive book, tweets offensive tweets but refuses to defend my own right to free speech about how people of mixed ancestry identify themselves - a right removed in part on the grounds that I was rude:

HUMAN rights lawyer Julian Burnside has apologised to Tony Abbott after branding him a "Paedos in speedos" on Twitter. The prominent QC said the tweet, which was seen by users of the social media service as a reference to pedophilia, was a mistake for which he unreservedly apologised. He said he thought he was sending the message to just one person, not his more than 5000 followers. "I don't think this is true of Tony Abbott and I apologise," Mr Burnside told The Australian Online. "I don't understand the way it works. It came through as a text on my phone. It was a pun. "I've always thought texts go to just one person. I replied with a similar pun that I had heard on Matt and George, a BBC comedy program." Mr Burnside said the comment was supposed to be a one-to-one reply to someone in a conversation about pedophile priests.