Twitter apologizes for Guy Adams controversy
(CBS News) Twitter, the microblogging service, released an apology Tuesday for mishandling the suspension of the account of journalist Guy Adams.
Adams made news when he alleged that Twitter suspended his account because of his harsh criticism of NBC's coverage of the Olympics. (Twitter and NBC are in a partnership for the London Olympic Games).
Twitter explained that Adams' account was suspended because he may have temporarily violated its terms of service by posting an email address for an NBC executive.
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NBC told The Telegraph that the network's social media department alerted Twitter of Adams' tweet and filled out a complaint form, which caused the account to become suspended:
Critics were quick to point out that a corporate NBC email may not technically be personal information. Twitter rebuffed by suggesting the line between personal and professional may be blurred for some people.
We've seen a lot of commentary about whether we should have considered a corporate email address to be private information. There are many individuals who may use their work email address for a variety of personal reasons -- and they may not. Our Trust and Safety team does not have insight into the use of every user's email address, and we need a policy that we can implement across all of our users in every instance.
The company went on to apologize for its misstep in the whole story, which shifts the blame on itself, diffusing the allegations that NBC was behind Adams' account suspension:
The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation, as has now been reported publicly. Our Trust and Safety team did not know that part of the story and acted on the report as they would any other.
Adams' account was restored Tuesday.
"Oh. My Twitter account appears to have been un-suspended. Did I miss much while I was away?" @guyadams tweeted.
