Twitter Suspends Journalist For Criticizing NBC Olympics Coverage

Can You say, “disturbing?” — Twitter suspended Guy Adams, a well known newspaper correspondent in Los Angeles, after he criticized NBC’s lack of live coverage of the Olympics… Close jaw.

Turns out the folks who run Twitter didn’t like a news story Adams wrote detailing widespread public complaints about the NBC coverage of the London Games — Come again Twitter?

Twitter made it official by releasing a statement confirming that Adams had been suspended for a single message he posted during the Opening Ceremony. Like many of us, Adams didn’t like the fact NBC prevented viewers in 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!” His tweet then contained the work email address of Mr Zenkel, the President of NBC Olympics.

Twitter claimed last night that the tweet breached its guidelines(?) Holyshit — Up until now, I thought I could say what ever the fuck I wanted to on Twitter, within reason!

Here’s the dreaded message Adams received from Twitter notifying him that he had been 86ed.

“Your account has been suspended for posting an individual’s private information such as private email address, physical address, telephone number, or financial documents,” the company informed Mr Adams. “It is a violation of the Twitter Rules.”

In response, Mr Adams wrote: “I didn’t publish a private email address, just a corporate one, which is widely available to anyone with access to Google and is identical to one that all of the tens of thousands of NBC Universal employees share. It’s no more ‘private’ than the address I’m emailing you from right now.

“Either way, [it’s] quite worrying that NBC, whose parent company is an Olympic sponsor, is apparently trying (and, in this case, succeeding) in shutting down the Twitter accounts of journalists who are critical of their Olympic coverage.”