Carleton Professor Criticizes Canadian Telecom Industry, Gets Twitter Account Suspended

Not gonna lie... this freaked me out a little bit. According to Professor Dwayne Winseck — aka "mediamorphis" on Twitter and on HowardForums, a post I made on HowardForums might be implicated in the suspension of his Twitter account last weekend. That post can be found here. Professor Winseck spoke at the International Institute of Communications Canada Conference in Ottawa last week. Here's Ben Klass on how it went: I also got to hear Dwayne Winseck talking about how Free Mobile has virtually wiped out contracts in France and how T-Mobile’s gotten rid of data roaming in the States. He was wondering why we haven’t got any of that pretty awesome new stuff here in Canada. I think that part made some people nervous.

The companion paper to his talk is starting to gain traction in the wider world. Back here on the forums, Winseck has started a thread about it.

I reached out to mediamorphis with some questions about what happened to his Twitter account. Here's what he had to say...

1. How and when did you find out that your Twitter account was blocked?

I came home Friday after being out with a friend to discover around 10pm that my account had been suspended. Here is what I saw when I logged in: Your account (@mediamorphis) is currently suspended. For more information, please visit Suspended Accounts. While I could read twitter stuff from others I couldn't tweet anything of my own or reply. Here are links to four screen shots from my computer showing some of the tweets I was putting out a few days prior: Sunday - 11:36am

Sunday - 11:39am (1)

Sunday - 11:39am (2)

Sunday - 11:40am

2. Has Twitter given you any explanation for what happened?

Twitter has not given me any explanation. I would very much like them to and have directed tweets at Kirstine Stewart indicating as much. I am encouraged, though, that in restoring my account Twitter has done the right thing. Again.

3. In addition to your mention of my Howard Forums post there's a link to Golan Telecom. What's that about?

Golan Telecom is one of two new mobile wireless companies in Israel, the other being Hot mobile. Golan Telecom is interesting because it was started up by an ex-executive of France's Iliad and Free Mobile, and explicitly built on Free's pioneering 'maverick brand'. It's a shit-disturber, basically... shaking up the market.

I don't know about you, but this leaves me with more questions than answers. It doesn't sit well with me at all that a University Professor with ideas about reforming Canada's telecom sector is effectively, if temporarily, muzzled.

This post was written by OpenMedia.ca community member and volunteer Andrew Currie for the HowardForums.