Biggest Critic Of NBC's Awful Olympic Coverage Has Twitter Account Suspended For Tweeting NBC Exec's Email
from the questionable... dept
One of the loudest critics of NBC Universal’s awful Olympics coverage was Guy Adams, who certainly wasn’t pulling any punches with his Olympics-related tweets. Either way he was a bit surprised to find his account suspended. When he sought to find out why, he discovered it was because he had tweeted the email address of Gary Zenkel, NBC’s exec in charge of the Olympics coverage. Twitter claims that this was the revealing of “private information,” in violation of Twitter’s terms of service.
Adams, quite rightly, found this to be odd, noting that Zenkel’s corporate email address is not private at all. As Deadspin shows in the link above, Adams let Twitter’s PR folks know it:
I’m of course happy to abide by Twitter’s rules, now and forever. But I don’t see how I broke them in this case: I didn’t publish a private email address. Just a corporate one, which is widely available to anyone with access to Google, and is identical to one that all of the tens of thousands of NBC Universal employees share.
It’s no more “private” than the address I’m emailing you from right now.
Either way, quite worrying that NBC, whose parent company are an Olympic sponsor, are apparently trying (and, in this case, succeeding) in shutting down the Twitter accounts of journliasts who are critical of their Olympic coverage.
Adams also wonders if the suspension happened because of complaints from NBC — a Twitter partner in this Olympics coverage, remember — who is upset about Adams’ constant berating on Twitter as well as in the publication he writes for, The Independent. In fact, NBC has put out a statement confirming that it filed a complaint about Adams’ Twitter account, though Twitter did not need to then suspend his account.
And, of course, as tends to happen in these sorts of situations, Gary Zenkel’s email address is now much more widely available because tons of press reports are including it.
Filed Under: account suspended, criticism, email, gary zenkel, guy adams, private info, streisand effect, twitter
Companies: nbc universal, twitter
Comments on “Biggest Critic Of NBC's Awful Olympic Coverage Has Twitter Account Suspended For Tweeting NBC Exec's Email”
I was assuming their be at least a 4 hour wait before NBC would release their rebuttal. =P
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Ugggg, lack of coffee… there’d not their. I also meant delay not wait…
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I have to wait 3 more hours since I’m on the West Coast…
They wanted to tweet his email during primetime.
Well, no one's perfect
Article ends with “Tim Berners-Lee, the Briton who created the internet.”
Berners-Lee, of course, invented the web; an important piece of, but not the, internet.
Re: Well, no one's perfect
You mean he’s the leader of Google? =P
Re: Re: Well, no one's perfect
Al Gore is leading Google now?!
Re: Re: Re: Well, no one's perfect
Well the RIAA taught me that Google controls the Internet… And IP laws taught me that the inventor controls his inventions. That means that Al Gore must be Google.
(You just need to let that logical fallacy soak in a bit =P)
Re: Well, no one's perfect
Well, at least they now have some vague of who he is, unlike during the event itself. We can give them a little extra time to educate themselves further.
Whom do you think makes the real laws?
I’ll give you a hint:
It takes gobs of money.
I really don’t see a problem with twitter having a standard rule for everyone and every situation when it comes to putting out email addresses, business or home.
I think if you have issues with that kind of good manners to users then you’re looking way to hard to find problems with things.
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> I really don’t see a problem with twitter
> having a standard rule for everyone and
> every situation when it comes to putting
> out email addresses, business or home.
But they don’t. A few months ago, when Spike Lee tweeted the home address of George Zimmerman after the Trayvon shooting, Twitter didn’t suspend Lee’s account. And it was all the worse because Lee didn’t even tweet the correct address and ended up victimizing some completely innocent people to the point where they had to flee their home for their own safety.
This is clearly a case of Twitter silencing a critic at the behest of NBC and they’re just using the email address as a flimsy excuse for doing it.
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Also a lesson in the importance of not making assumptions, both of Zimmerman’s guilt and the accuracy of information in any media.
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It’s good manners not to share information about someone that they share about them-selfs ,since when?
Re: Rule for EVERYONE
Mwhahaha said – “a standard rule for everyone and every situation…”
Yet, when Spike Lee tweeted the (incorrect) address of George Zimmerman (in an attempt to get him lynched, I suppose) the didn’t suspend his account.
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“I really don’t see a problem with twitter having a standard rule for everyone and every situation when it comes to putting out email addresses, business or home.”
Only in a very simplistic world (yours maybe?) does one rule cover all situations without causing stupid situations, like widely publicised email addresses being considered private.
“I think if you have issues with that kind of good manners to users then you’re looking way to hard to find problems with things.”
I think if you don’t have an issue with NBC censoring a critical journalist then you’re not looking hard enough.
You forgot to mention NBC’s email format is firstname.lastname@nbcuni.com , so if your name was, for instance, Zary Genkel, your address would be zary.genkel@nbcuni.com .
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So Gary Zenkel’s Email is Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com?
Who would of thought it would be something as simple as Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com
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Dude! They’re going to shut down your anonymous commenting on Techdirt if you keep posting Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com.
They succeeded in getting his account suspended which achieves their goal of ‘untwisting the boss’s/board’s panties’ by way of flexing muscle. Unfortunately Gary Zenkel must be seen as beneath their concern, because he will be the one likely recieving the majority of the backlash.
Heeeellllloooooo Barbara Streisand effect.
Personal information?
So NBC claimed that this dude posted ‘personal information’ and that personal information was … a corporate e-mail account that a five-year old could have figured out? This fails the smell test.
This isn’t a genuine complaint, this is NBC wanting this guy shut up.
Re: Personal information?
I’m thinking almost anything coming out of NBC would fail the smell test. After all, they deal with shoveling out crap all day.
Guess the same could be said about most media outlets. =P
Re: Personal information?
“This isn’t a genuine complaint, this is NBC wanting this guy shut up.”
And apparently Twitter fell for it.
Gee the Obama propaganda network censored a critic. Big Surprise!
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Fail. Try again.
Getting pretty tired of the “Silenced Journalist” articles.
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Get used to it, and stop complaining.
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+1 internets
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Can you explain why you’re so tired of this, and why we should just all shut up and let journalists get censored by corporate and/or government interests?
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Not sure about his reasons but I’m tired of them as well. I’m tired of journalists getting silenced. Tired of congress speculating if the can charge journalists with espionage. Bet Nixon would have loved being able to do that 🙂
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Getting pretty tired of the “Silenced Journalist” articles.
Who cares?
Just mailed gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com to ask him to relocate himself to another universe were facism and censorship are accepted.
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I emailed him wishing him good luck on that copyright thing. It’s faster to get events from usenet before it even is televised in the states, thanks to his ‘prime time’ delay, how ironic…
Sadly they don’t include McDonalds proprietary commercials.
/sarc
That is Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com with a “Z”, right?
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*watches AC’s face morph into a trollface*
Dear FSM ACOET got another one…..
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Yes Gary.Zenkel@nbcuni.com is spelled with a ‘Z’.
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Over 1435 results already on google, in 15 countries, for Gary.Zenkel@NBCuni.com. Will he get them all shut down?
Bad career move, the Internet is gonna eviscerate the copytard.
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I’m getting 4,160 results now.
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In 38 minutes.. I lol’d so hard.
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26 000 now. Who would have guessed that this could have been such a bad id?a? 😉
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“Bad career move, the Internet is gonna eviscerate the copytard.”
Words like that are the reasons why dickheads with Fawkes masks are hard to take seriously. Do you ever get out from behind the keyboard, or doesn’t mommy not let you out after dark?
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Every day when I go to work for 6 figures, at a company with presence in 154 countries.
Re: Re: Re:3 Re:
sorry dude, that sucks. Just keep at it and maybe you will be self-sufficient some day.
Re: Re: Re:4 Re:
My comment just flew right over your head didn’t it.. I own my mom’s house, she’s dead, and a house in Colorado, and a house in Florida, also, my mom’s house doesn’t have a basement, nor have I lived there for 34 years,.. I just rent it out now, and I STILL file share instead of paying the MAFIAA, now, with that in mind, ask yourself why I still refuse to give any money to entertainment industries.
Jealous much?
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And with comments like that, you have made your opinions null and void.
Too bad, you are hiding behind an Anonymous Coward nom-de-plume.
I don't think they care about the email
I don’t think NBC cares that the email is more widely know now, they’re probably just happy Adam’s twitter account is suspended.
as usual, power and money corrupts and absolute power and money corrupts absolutely. the really worrying thing i think is the lack of checks done by Twitter before suspending the account. but then why would they worry about one check when they have the other cheque ($) from NBC?
come down to intent
Why would someone post an email address that was allready publicly available ??? for what purpose was it designed to achieve ?
Simple really,, he wanted to incite his followers to email this person, and incite them to spam, flood, or otherwise harass this person.
There is simply no other reason why someone would do that, unless he/she was looking for trouble..
I know, Masnick makes him out to be all innocent, and did not ‘mean’ anything by it, but perhaps he can explain WHY he would even do that ?
I hope they delete his account, and put him on a permanent ban..
Re: come down to intent
Possibly he posted it so that people would write to this chap and point out how awful his coverage was and request he sort his act out. I mean, it’s only the biggest sporting event in the world…
ALternatively, why would you post such a deliberately goading post here, knowing that all you’ll do is provoke a frustrated / angry response?
Flop
Let’s face it. This Olympics is a flop. it is obvious that the TV networks world wide know that they have little chance of attracting the number of viewers previous Olympics had.
The OIC can be blamed. Allowing NON Olympic events to enter the games, I’m talking about team sports such as basketball, soccer, tennis and such, bore people. We see enough of it during other times.
The Olympics is suppose to be for individual achievements not team sports.
Dump them all and get back to basics and then, maybe, the Olympics will survive. Follow the current trend and in 20 years it will be a non event, maybe sooner
What’s the fuss with this gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com email actually ? Who’s this Gary guy ?
Anyone have an email for twitter? support or executive?
Bankrupt NBC
Solve several problems at once. Bankrupt NBC.
I’m so happy to NOT be watching the Olympics.
Didn’t take long for that slippery slope.
Start with individual tweets requested by Countries/Governments, making for a transparent, better, more useful service? Move on to accounts at request of corporation.
Does knowing twitter suspended an account make the service more useful?
olympic coverage
I do not have a friend or family member in the olympics, however we have people from all over the world the have spent a life time preparing for the games and all we are getting are announcers who in their own right are talented but this is about the atheletes. You need to give as many of them as possible some air time . folks this is NOT a variety show this is the OLYMPICS. Show these dedicated people more, it so hard for me to understand why this is not paramount. Thanks Ann