Journalist Guy Adams was controversially booted from Twitter Monday for tweeting out the email address of NBC Olympic president Gary Zenkel. Now it appears Twitter itself tipped off the network about his critical tweet.
“According to an NBC spokesman called Christopher McCloskey, it was the micro-blogging site–and not NBC–that was responsible for initiating the complaint that lead to my suspension in the first place,” wrote Independent correspondent Adams in his article on the matter.
McCloskey told The Telegraph that Twitter brought Adams’s tweet to the attention of NBC’s social media department, which then submitted a complaint about the tweet in which Gary Zenkel’s email address was mentioned. Twitter, meanwhile, simply told the Wall Street Journal social media editor Neil Mann that it doesn’t “actively monitor content.
It’s important to note that Twitter has a partnership with NBC for the community’s Olympics hub, which curates tweets from Olympic athletes, their families, and others. NBC is promoting the page heavily on air.
Adams contended that he did not break any rules. Twitter forbids users from posting “other people’s private and confidential information” without their permission. The journalist argued that Zenkel’s email address is not private since it’s a corporate email address and available to anyone with the wherewithal to search for it on Google.
Adams was told by Twitter his account may be reinstated if he admits breaking rules and apologizes.
“If what NBC is saying is true, it undermines everything that Twitter stands for and is an absolute disgrace and will aggravate many millions of its users,” he told The Telegraph. “I don’t understand their rules, I haven’t done anything wrong and I think it sets a very ugly precedent for me to promise not to do it again.”
Photo by rabinal
