NBC has Twitter suspend journalist critical of Olympics coverage – I’m done

I have been a big fan and user at Twitter for some time and feel it is a social media tool with incredible potential. That said, I’m out. Because of this:

Guy Adams is The Independent‘s Los Angeles bureau chief. During the Olympics so far, he has carved out a nice spot on the how-much-NBC’s-coverage-sucks beat. Now his Twitter account has been suspended—supposedly because NBC had it cut off after he complained.

Twitter’s reasoning or suspending Adams’ account is because he tweeted the corporate (and publicly available) e-mail address of NBC exec Gary Zenkel. Here is NBC’s statement:

We filed a complaint with Twitter because a user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives. According to Twitter, this is a violation of their privacy policy. Twitter alone levies discipline.

I am very shy about being involved with large corporations and I feel Twitter has allowed a massive corporation to shut up a critic. A corporate e-mail address is not “personal information” that demands privacy.

So, I am taking an indefinite leave of absence from Twitter. While I appreciate the support of my followers there, I don’t feel at all comfortable with this situation and am not interested in supporting Twitter in any after they so blithely suspended a journalist. This is what a slippery slope looks like, and it is not something I want to be a part of.

I’ll still be posting here, where I can do things like post the e-mail address of NBC exec Gary Zenkel – Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com – without fear of retribution.

Here is Adams’ take on the situation thus far.

Update: Twitter is partnered with NBC for the Olympics. Apparently they were the ones who initiated contact with NBC about Adams and how to get his account suspended.

–WKW