Codebreaker

A Twitter ban

Marc Sanchez Jul 31, 2012

Guy Adams lives on the west coast and writes for the UK paper The Independent, and he hasn’t been too happy that all his mates working out of the paper’s headquarters get to experience the Olympics six hours before he has had a chance to see anything. Adams aired frustrations on Twitter concerning the Opening Ceremony blackout imposed by NBC (it wasn’t part of live streams). That was OK. NBC, I’m sure, can handle a little good-natured ribbing. Chances are that when Adams used the @NBCOlympics handle in his tweet calling the company “utter bastards,” that they didn’t even see it.

Or did they? Adams vitriol continued to bubble up, and he decided to post NBC Olympic honcho Gary Zenkel’s email address in a tweet. There’s confusion as to who the instigator was – NBC or Twitter, but that was Adams’ last tweet. His account has been suspended.

The Guardian writes:

Adams wrote in the Independent on Tuesday that his ban “raises various ethical issues relevant to journalism in the online era”.
A spokeswoman for Twitter declined to comment.
The company has previously told the Guardian that it does not actively monitor users’ accounts, and added that it was company policy not to comment on individual users.

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