The Olympic Twitter casualties—and controversies—continue. Days after the social media giant suspended a journalist’s account for including an NBC executive’s email in his critique of NBCUniversal’s coverage of the games, Twitter is facing a backlash from users who say the company went too far.
Independent newspaper journalist Guy Adams suggested his followers email NBC’s Gary Zenkel their complaints about delaying broadcast of the opening ceremonies to capitalize on viewership. Soon afterward, Adams discovered his account had been suspended for including Zenkel’s email. But the journalist maintains that NBC only filed a form to call for his account’s suspension after being prompted by Twitter, which has a partnership with the broadcaster to create an Olympic highlight page for the games online. Twitter says it does not actively monitor users’ accounts.
Photo by DOUGLAS E. CURRAN/AFP/GettyImages
The social media giant has cast itself as a protector of free speech, but with users retweeting the NBC executive’s email in angry protests, the little birdie might need to curtail its own chirping.
Video by Krishnan Vasuvedan.
