Twitter Bans UK Journalist For Olympic Criticism

Max Smolaks,

Guy Adams said NBC coverage of the London 2012 was bad. Thousands agreed.

Twitter has been asked to clarify its policies after it suspended the account of British journalist Guy Adams for criticising the Olympic coverage provided by US broadcaster NBC.

According to Twitter, the account was suspended after the company received a complaint that Adams violated the site’s rules by publishing the corporate email address of an NBC executive responsible for the coverage.

However, NBC’s vice-president of communications Christopher McCloskey later told The Telegraph that it was Twitter that alerted the broadcaster about Adams’ tweets.

This has raised questions about the partnership between Twitter and NBC during the London 2012 games, and the impartiality of the microblogging platform.

Freedom of speech

Adams, the Independent’s Los Angeles bureau chief, was among thousands of people using Twitter to vent their anger at the six-hour NBC Olympic broadcast delay for the US West Coast, its apparently senseless editing, factual errors and frequent advertising breaks.

“I have 1000 channels on my TV. Not one will be showing the Olympics opening ceremony live. Because NBC are utter, utter bastards,” tweeted Adams.

“NBC are of course the clowns who for years prevented America from watching the Wimbledon semi finals live,” said another tweet.

However, according to Twitter, the account was banned for one message in particular: “The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven’t started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com”.

Shortly after this tweet went live, Adams’ account was blocked. His messages remain accessible at the Muckrack.com. At first, it was thought that NBC asked Twitter to suspend the account. However, it later emerged that it was the website itself that contacted the broadcaster.

“Our social media dept was actually alerted to it by Twitter and then we filled out the form and submitted it,” McCloskey, NBC’s vice-president of communications, told the Telegraph.

Twitter has claimed that it does not actively monitor users’ accounts. It also said it doesn’t comment on individual accounts for privacy reasons.

Terms and conditions

“It is a violation of the Twitter rules to post the private and confidential information of others,” explained the company in an email to Adams. And indeed, the company policy states that publication of “non-public, personal email addresses” is a violation of the Twitter Rules. “That would have been the standard procedure for anyone,” a Twitter spokeswoman told TechWeekEurope.

However, Adams said the email address was already public, claiming there had to be another reason for his suspension. “I did not tweet a private email address. I tweeted a corporate address for Mr Zenkel, which is widely listed online, and is identical in form to that of tens of thousands of those at NBC.”

Since the opening ceremony, the microblogging platform has been full of criticism for NBC’s Olympics coverage, all tagged with #nbcfail, but no other accounts have been suspended:

“As a journalist, you know you are doing your job properly when you manage to upset rich, powerful and entitled people who are used to getting their own way. And you know you’ve really got under their skin when they pursue censorship, the avenue of last resort since time immemorial,” writes Adams.

The whole issue boils down to a technicality. If Zenkel’s email was confidential, Twitter was correct to enforce its policy. If the email was public, then the company crossed the line, for reasons unknown.

Meanwhile, research by Semiocast has revealed that in June 2012, the number of Twitter accounts worldwide reached half a billion.

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