The #NBCfail Twitter ban - can a work e-mail address be “personal”? In the wake of the temporary suspension of journalist Guy Adams from Twitter, many observers have questioned whether Mr Adams breached Twitter's rules by Tweeting the corporate e-mail address of NBC Olympics executive Gary Zenkel.
The relevant part of the Twitter Rules state that “you may not publish or post other people’s private and confidential information”. A support article providing further information on this Rule states that it covers “non-public, personal email addresses”. The same document goes on to state that “If information was previously posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on Twitter, it is not a violation of this policy.” Although I agree with the apparently widespread view that Mr Adams cannot have breached this policy given the way that it is worded, the chief purpose of this article is to question the equally widespread assumptions that: Is Gary Zenkel’s e-mail address a “personal email address”? Is Gary Zenkel’s e-mail address “non-public”?
Is Twitter a publisher or a distributor? There’s a crucial difference. There are a whole host of issues raised by the case of Guy Adams, the British journalist whose Twitter account was recently suspended and then reinstated — including the potential clash between Twitter’s desire to forge commercial partnerships with media entities like NBC and its commitment to free speech.
But the kind of behavior that Twitter engaged in by banning Adams also raises some other important issues for the company: as it expands its media ambitions and does more curation and manual filtering of the kind it has been doing for NBC, Twitter is gradually transforming itself from a distributor of real-time information into a publisher of editorial content, and that could have serious legal ramifications. Twitter confronts ethics of commercial pressures in wake of Guy Adams 'mess' In January 2011 Biz Stone, co-founder of Twitter, together with the site's "trust and safety" arbiter Alex Macgillivray, posted a paean to freedom of expression under the portentous title: The Tweets Must Flow.
They promised they would respect everyone's human right to unimpeded speech, vowing only to remove tweets that were illegal, spam or in breach of privacy. Fine words. But this week the tweets stopped flowing for one of Twitter's users. When Guy Adams, the Independent's Los Angeles correspondent, went to issue his latest gobbet of wisdom in 140 characters on Monday he found his Twitter stream well and truly dammed. Guy Adams: Twitter backs down at last - but why did I get banned? - Commentators - Opinion. "I feel," I replied, "like Nelson Mandela walking through the streets of Cape Town, circa 1990.
" The producer looked at me, aghast. "Whatever you do," she commanded, "do not go and say that when we put you on air. " Joking aside, the situation neatly summed up the absurdity of a course of events which allowed a snarky, 140-character-or-less piece of prose, which ought to have sunk without trace, become the subject of a viral news story which is still being debated across the international media landscape.
At about 6pm, London time, shortly before that green-room conversation, I had received an email from "Twitter support," announcing that I was no longer verboten in Twitter-land. "Your account was suspended because a complaint was filed stating that you had violated our terms of service," it read. End of story, right? Is Twitter us or them? #twitterfail and living somewhere between public commitment and private investment. This is about the fourth Olympics that’s been trumpeted as the first one to embrace social media and the Internet — just as, depending on how you figure it, it’s about the fourth U.S. election in a row that’s the first to go digital.
It may be in the nature of new technologies that we appear perpetually, or at least for a very long time, to be just on the cusp of something. NBC has proudly trumpeted its online video streaming, its smartphone and tablet apps, and most importantly its partnership with microblogging platform Twitter. NBC regularly displays the #Olympics hashtag on the broadcasts, their coverage includes tweets and twit pics from athletes, and their website has made room for sport-specific Twitter streams. It feels like an odd corporate pairing, at least from one angle. Twitter users have tweeted about past Olympics, for sure.
Can you do journalism on Twitter? On email privacy, Twitter’s ToS and owning your own platform. If you missed the news, Guy Adams, a journalist at the Independent newspaper in England, was suspended by Twitter after he tweeted the corporate email address of a NBC executive, Gary Zenkel.
London Olympics Critic Banned From Twitter For Tweeting NBC Executive's Email Address. The journalism world is buzzing over Guy Adams, a journalist covering the London Olympics , being banned from Twitter.
Like many Twitter users, Adams has been critical of NBC’s coverage and decision to delay its broadcasts for prime-time. As Deadspin recounts, Adams urged his followers to target their complaints at the NBC executive he claimed was responsible for the network’s decisions around the Games: “The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: [redacted]@nbcuni.com,” Adams tweeted. An NBC Sports spokesperson says the network reported Adams for violating Twitter Rules which specify that users “may not publish or post other people’s private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission.”
Twitter suspends British journalist critical of NBC's Olympics coverage. Twitter has brought down a hail of critical tweeting on its own head by suspending the account of a British newspaper's Los Angeles correspondent following his acerbic reporting of NBC's coverage of the Olympics.
The social media network hummed with the indignation of thousands of its users after the Twitter feed of Guy Adams of the Independent disappeared. The paper's deputy editor, Archie Bland, confirmed the suspension, calling it "heavy-handed". NBC said it had complained to Twitter after Adams published the email address of one of its senior bosses. "We filed a complaint with Twitter because a user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives. According to Twitter, this is a violation of their privacy policy. Rachael Horwitz, a spokeswoman for the San Francisco-based firm, confirmed that it does not "actively monitor" users' accounts, and added that it was company policy not to comment on individual users. #NBCFail: Journalist at The Independent has Twitter account suspended after complaining about NBC's coverage of London 2012 Olympics - Americas - World. Guy Adams, this newspaper's Los Angeles correspondent, was removed from the social networking site on the day that he wrote a news story detailing widespread public complaints about the network's coverage of the London Games.
According to Twitter, he was suspended for a message posted during the Opening Ceremony, when NBC prevented viewers of America from watching live coverage, so that the network could screen the occasion during an evening prime-time slot coveted by advertisers. "The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven't started yet is Gary Zenkel," wrote Mr Adams.
"Tell him what * think! " Dan Gillmor » Is Twitter’s Suspension of Journalist’s Account a Defining Moment?