Update: Twitter has officially apologized for part of its actions in this story.
You’ve heard by now that Twitter suspended Guy Adams, a journalist from the UK paper The Independent after Adams posted the email address of an NBC exec and urged his followers to send in email complaining about the network’s (shamefully bad) handling of its Olympics broadcasts. Dan Gillmor in the Guardian has some context about how totally, boneheadedly stupid Twitter is being here, and what they need to do to fix it.
Adams has posted his correspondence with Twitter, which claims he published a private email address. It was nothing of the kind, as many, including the Deadspin sports blog, have pointed out. (Here’s the policy, which Adams plainly did not violate, since the NBC executive’s email address was already easily discernible on the web — NBC has a firstname.lastname@ system for its email, and it’s a corporate address, not a personal one — and was published online over a year ago.)
What makes this a serious issue is that Twitter has partnered with NBC during the Olympics. And it was NBC’s complaint about Adams that led to the suspension. That alone raises reasonable suspicions about Twitter’s motives.
Now, Twitter has been exemplary in its handling of many issues over the past several years, including its (for a social network) brave stance in protecting user privacy; for example, it has contested warrantless government fishing expeditions. So I’m giving the service the benefit of the doubt for the moment, and hoping that this is just a foolish — if possibly well-meaning — mistake by a single quick-triggered Twitter employee. If so, Twitter should apologize and reinstate Adams’ account immediately. If it does so, there’s little harm done — and the company will have learned a lesson.
If Twitter doesn’t reinstate Guy Adams, it’s a defining moment