Blink and you’d have missed the 80-word statement Joey Barton tweeted last week, a few days after he was spared jail for an orchestrated campaign of online abuse.
His appeal against that criminal conviction was 'now formally underway’ he declared to the world, proclaiming he was making a stand for free speech. Barely 1,000 people retweeted this – miniscule by high profile ex-footballer standards – and attempts by various Barton followers to tag Elon Musk into what the 43-year-old insists is a state-sponsored conspiracy all came to nothing. Musk didn’t respond.