by Sunny Hundal

The story was first broken by Matthew Garrahan at the FT

Ominous: Twitter has shut down @guyadams‘ account after #NBC complained about tweets he wrote that criticised its #Olympics coverage. — Matthew Garrahan (@MattGarrahan) July 30, 2012

Others soon picked it up

My colleague @guyadams‘ Twitter account was suspended after @NBC complained about his tweets criticising the network’s #Olympics coverage — Kevin Rawlinson (@KevinJRawlinson) July 30, 2012

There were words of caution

Just to be clear – @guyadams account has been suspended. He has been savagely critical of NBC. Whether the two are linked – can’t be sure — Rory Cellan-Jones (@ruskin147) July 30, 2012

And some confirmation

Hear all about @guyadams‘ Twitter ban from the man himself in tomorrow’s @independent. #nbc #london2012 — Richard Hall (@_RichardHall) July 30, 2012

So what got Guy Adams suspended from Twitter?

It seems to be this tweet

This has now been confirmed by the Independent’s deputy editor Archie Bland, who added:

Reasonable to ask whether it also had to do with his criticism of NBC’s coverage of the games and whether they’d usually take the same step. — Archie Bland (@archiebland) July 30, 2012

UPDATE 1 Guy Adams did break Twitter rules, which forbid publishing private information such as email addresses. But to suspend the account still seems outrageous. It is hardly a huge crime.

He was quite relentlessly critical though.

UPDATE 2 Website Deadspin has posted email discussions he had with Twitter over this.

This is the reply Guy Adams got from Twitter

Hello, Your account has been suspended for posting an individual’s private information such as private email address, physical address, telephone number, or financial documents. Tweet link: https://twitter.com/guyadams/status/228973760785547264 Tweet content: 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 It is a violation of the Twitter Rules to post the private and confidential information of others. For more information on this policy, please see the following policy page:

http://support.twitter.com/entries/18368 If you would like to request your account to be restored, please respond to this email and confirm that you’ve read and understood our rules: http://twitter.com/rules

Please note that future Twitter Rules violations may result in permanent account suspension. We appreciate your cooperation going forward. Thanks, @cbellarun Twitter Trust and Safety

Guy Adams disputed Twitter’s interpretation of events and shot back this reply:

Hi Rachel They’ve dealt with this (see below). Would you mind if I give you a quick call to discuss? I’m of course happy to abide by Twitter’s rules, now and forever. But I don’t see how I broke them in this case: 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, quite worrying that NBC, whose parent company are an Olympic sponsor, are apparently trying (and, in this case, succeeding) in shutting down the Twitter accounts of journliasts who are critical of their Olympic coverage. Am I to presume, for example, that they decided to complain about me because of my recent article in the Indy’s news page about their various failures? (see link)

http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/news/as-america-succeeds-at-the-games-back-home-all-the-talk-is-about-nbcfail-7986147.html And if so, isn’t it a bit rum that they succeed in shutting down my account?

Either way, thanks for expediting all of this. Yours &c

Guy

A good point by a Reuters journalist

The Guy Adams/Twitter/NBC debate wages on – would Twitter suspend someone for posting an easily Google-able corporate email address? — Piya Sinha-Roy (@PiyaSRoy) July 30, 2012

UPDATE 3 Confirmation NBC did complain