7 ms·

Twitter account suspension prompts user backlash

100 points by nsns 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- Vivtek 14y ago
  That's not at all the same case. Yes, it's Twitter and the Olympics, but this article is about a journalist who criticized NBC's coverage of the Olympics, named the executive responsible and cited his email address, and had his account yanked. Turns out Twitter notified NBC, too, and encouraged them to file a complaint for "disclosing personal information" even though this email address is publicly disclosed on NBC's own site. Very questionable stuff there.
  - ColinWright 14y ago
    Sorry, you're absolutely right. I dropped that comment into the reply box in the wrong tab. mea culpa - I have deleted it. Apologies for the confusion. If you delete your reply then I will delete this, and then the thread will be clean again.
  - ceol 14y ago
    Where is the email address disclosed on NBC's site? I'd like to see a link.
    - Vivtek 14y ago
      I don't know. I'm repeating hearsay. (sigh) I thought it would be relatively easy to search on the email address itself to answer your question, because it's a good question, but obviously that email address is now plastered on every blog in existence. Should have Googled it a day ago, I guess. From the account I originally read, though, it wasn't posted in a terribly obvious place but it was published somewhere on one of NBC's sites. Their bio pages don't have contact information, and that's about all I can find, along with a lot of press releases quoting the man. As the president of NBC Olympics since 2005, he's said a lot of boring things in press releases. "We're confident that Adobe is the right partner for our mobile app development," and so on.
s_henry_paulson 14y ago
Let's say someone "popular" posted a negative tweet about you, and included your contact information. Would you want Twitter to notify you about it and see if you wanted to file a complaint, or would you rather just sit in a deluge of hatemail with no idea of where it's coming from?
- stfu 14y ago
  I, for one, know that there is a thing called "Google" that I use for solving mysteries like these. Plus, applied in a general context, do you expect Twitter now to contact every email address posted on the platform to check back with the owner on the legality of disclosing the email address to the public?
  - s_henry_paulson 14y ago
    Obviously you can't police the world, but if there is a system that prevents abuse that they have the ability to use, I see no reason not to use it. Also, this has nothing to do with legality, only TOS/privacy policy violations that you agree to when you sign up.
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- danilocampos 14y ago
  The difference between me and the complainant: I don't work for a massive news organization. NBCUniversal owns a broadcast network. Broadcast spectrum is held in public trust, with monopolies on access to that spectrum granted to a limited number of parties. To my mind, this makes their executives publicly accountable. Y'want your fat media exec salary? This is a cost of doing business. And let's be clear: this guy's work email was shared. Not his phone number, not his home address.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
nilsbunger 14y ago
Is a corporate email address really "personal information" ??
- uncoder0 14y ago
  The email address is/was easily found by a google search. I don't think it was private information but I can see how it is 'personal'. It really depends on how Twitter defines "personal information".
  - masklinn 14y ago
    > The email address is/was easily found by a google search. It is now, it looks like it was not before: http://searchengineland.com/nbc-olympic-executives-email-wasnt-widely-available-in-google-128973 http://searchengineland.com/nbc-olympic-executives-email-was...
    - uncoder0 14y ago
      That article does a poor job proving that you could not find the name before with a simple google search and/or some basic deduction.
- zippie 14y ago
  Yes - if it's not available publicly.
  - tomp 14y ago
    No, if you can guess it (e.g. name.surname@company.com).
    - ceol 14y ago
      It's still personal if you can guess it. For instance, you might be able to guess someone's GMail username by their Facebook vanity URL or their Hacker News username. That doesn't mean you can post their email all over the place. If it's not posted publicly by the person, it's private.
dannyr 14y ago
Spike Lee (Director) tweeted somebody's physical address. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/spike-lee-apologizes-george-zimmerman-address-tweet-015514123.html http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/spike-lee-apologizes-geo... His account is still good though. https://twitter.com/SpikeLee https://twitter.com/SpikeLee
- stfu 14y ago
  Things like these make the "private information" argument super fishy. Twitter has taken a very free speech oriented position in the past (just remember the not shutting down of lulzsec/anonymous accounts). The actions of Twitter in the NBC case and the close sponsorship alliance between both make Twitter appear as a very weak when it comes to standing up against corporate interests.
- s_henry_paulson 14y ago
  I fail to see how this is similar unless you have proof that someone filed a complaint and Twitter failed to act on it.
  - dannyr 14y ago
    So are you saying that even if Twitter knows about Spike Lee's violation (which they likely do), Twitter does not have to act unless somebody files a complaint?
    - willurd 14y ago
      Don't worry everyone, I have just filed a complaint (above). I'm sure Twitter will suspend Spike Lee's account as soon as they receive it. /s In all seriousness, you all might want to fill their inboxes with similar complaints.
      - stfu 14y ago
        Do you have a blog or something like that? Don't know if this gets enough momentum just from within the comment section. If you wrote a post on that I am quite certain it would go to the front page.
frogpelt 14y ago
The Twitter Rules state "Privacy: You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission." The lines are a little blurred when they consider an executive's email address which is already on a public website to be private or confidential contact information. On the other hand, Twitter probably decided that suspending one user rather than upsetting NBC was an okay trade off. That appears to have been a miscalculation. I doubt Twitter will suffer very long for it.
zippie 14y ago
Whether or not the e-mail address could be found out with "30 seconds of free time and access to Google" is irrelevant. Posting private information about someone violates twitter's TOS and therefore the account was banned. The fact it's someone who criticized a sponsor of twitter is irrelevant because that account would not have been suspended if an e-mail address (personal information) had not been posted.
- incision 14y ago
  Common sense says that published corporate email addresses don't qualify as private. I wonder if Twitter will ban me for posting your "private" Hacker News username?
  - zippie 14y ago
    Not to be flippant but where exactly is the e-mail publicly posted? I wasn't able to find it on NBC's site. I also don't consider my HN username private because it is shown on a public forum (and I understand that it would have been).
    - alayne 14y ago
      It was on this page at least http://www.fidei.org/2011/06/boycott-nbc-removed-under-god-from.html http://www.fidei.org/2011/06/boycott-nbc-removed-under-god-f... Amusingly, Gary's email address is all over the Internet now. Couldn't twitter have just removed the offending message and saved themselves the negative publicity?
- jonknee 14y ago
  It's the fact that they don't enforce this policy that makes it controversial. How about to email Tim Cook about something? Plenty of tweets with tcook@apple.com in them.
  - zippie 14y ago
    His e-mail is public information - it's widely available on Google. Gary Zenkel's is not. http://searchengineland.com/nbc-olympic-executives-email-wasnt-widely-available-in-google-128973 http://searchengineland.com/nbc-olympic-executives-email-was... Beyond that, how would you like it if your e-mail, home address was tweet'ed out and you were heckled?
gmisra 14y ago
I wonder what would have twitter done if this happend in March 2011, and the e-mail address in question was that of a Libyan secret police "executive"?
crag 14y ago
Wait.. Twitter notified NBC who then "filled out the forms" to have this guy suspended? I thought Twitter didn't monitor users tweets?
- brianwhitman 14y ago
  The article says "He quoted an NBC spokesman as saying: "Our social media department was actually alerted to it by Twitter and then we filled out the form and submitted it." I can read this in one of two ways: Twitter (the company) alerted NBC, or Twitter users on the social network Twitter alerted NBC. There's not much clarity there, but obviously the former is scary and confusing and the latter happens all the time.
  - untog 14y ago
    the former is scary Depends a lot on context. If Twitter had said "FYI, one of your e-mail addresses is currently publicly visible on our service, expect a deluge of e-mail", I don't see a huge problem. If they said "Hey, want us to ban this guy?" then that's something different.
    - shrikant 14y ago
      From here[1]: 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. Looks like your latter situation is exactly how it went down. [1] http://blog.twitter.com/2012/07/our-approach-to-trust-safety-and.html http://blog.twitter.com/2012/07/our-approach-to-trust-safety...
      - crag 14y ago
        OK then.. this is serious.
ashbrahma 14y ago
Looks like his account has been restored: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/07/31/twitter-restores-the-account-of-journalist-suspended-over-nbc-olympics-protest/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/07/31/twitter-restores-th...
da_n 14y ago
"The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership..." I'm really worried about what Twitter is becoming.

100 points by nsns 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

Vivtek 14y ago
That's not at all the same case. Yes, it's Twitter and the Olympics, but this article is about a journalist who criticized NBC's coverage of the Olympics, named the executive responsible and cited his email address, and had his account yanked. Turns out Twitter notified NBC, too, and encouraged them to file a complaint for "disclosing personal information" even though this email address is publicly disclosed on NBC's own site. Very questionable stuff there.
- ColinWright 14y ago
  Sorry, you're absolutely right. I dropped that comment into the reply box in the wrong tab. mea culpa - I have deleted it. Apologies for the confusion. If you delete your reply then I will delete this, and then the thread will be clean again.
- ceol 14y ago
  Where is the email address disclosed on NBC's site? I'd like to see a link.
  - Vivtek 14y ago
    I don't know. I'm repeating hearsay. (sigh) I thought it would be relatively easy to search on the email address itself to answer your question, because it's a good question, but obviously that email address is now plastered on every blog in existence. Should have Googled it a day ago, I guess. From the account I originally read, though, it wasn't posted in a terribly obvious place but it was published somewhere on one of NBC's sites. Their bio pages don't have contact information, and that's about all I can find, along with a lot of press releases quoting the man. As the president of NBC Olympics since 2005, he's said a lot of boring things in press releases. "We're confident that Adobe is the right partner for our mobile app development," and so on.

s_henry_paulson 14y ago

Let's say someone "popular" posted a negative tweet about you, and included your contact information. Would you want Twitter to notify you about it and see if you wanted to file a complaint, or would you rather just sit in a deluge of hatemail with no idea of where it's coming from?

stfu 14y ago
I, for one, know that there is a thing called "Google" that I use for solving mysteries like these. Plus, applied in a general context, do you expect Twitter now to contact every email address posted on the platform to check back with the owner on the legality of disclosing the email address to the public?
- s_henry_paulson 14y ago
  Obviously you can't police the world, but if there is a system that prevents abuse that they have the ability to use, I see no reason not to use it. Also, this has nothing to do with legality, only TOS/privacy policy violations that you agree to when you sign up.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
danilocampos 14y ago
The difference between me and the complainant: I don't work for a massive news organization. NBCUniversal owns a broadcast network. Broadcast spectrum is held in public trust, with monopolies on access to that spectrum granted to a limited number of parties. To my mind, this makes their executives publicly accountable. Y'want your fat media exec salary? This is a cost of doing business. And let's be clear: this guy's work email was shared. Not his phone number, not his home address.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

nilsbunger 14y ago

Is a corporate email address really "personal information" ??

uncoder0 14y ago
The email address is/was easily found by a google search. I don't think it was private information but I can see how it is 'personal'. It really depends on how Twitter defines "personal information".
- masklinn 14y ago
  > The email address is/was easily found by a google search. It is now, it looks like it was not before: http://searchengineland.com/nbc-olympic-executives-email-wasnt-widely-available-in-google-128973 http://searchengineland.com/nbc-olympic-executives-email-was...
  - uncoder0 14y ago
    That article does a poor job proving that you could not find the name before with a simple google search and/or some basic deduction.
zippie 14y ago
Yes - if it's not available publicly.
- tomp 14y ago
  No, if you can guess it (e.g. name.surname@company.com).
  - ceol 14y ago
    It's still personal if you can guess it. For instance, you might be able to guess someone's GMail username by their Facebook vanity URL or their Hacker News username. That doesn't mean you can post their email all over the place. If it's not posted publicly by the person, it's private.

dannyr 14y ago

Spike Lee (Director) tweeted somebody's physical address. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/spike-lee-apologizes-george-zimmerman-address-tweet-015514123.html http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/spike-lee-apologizes-geo... His account is still good though. https://twitter.com/SpikeLee https://twitter.com/SpikeLee

stfu 14y ago
Things like these make the "private information" argument super fishy. Twitter has taken a very free speech oriented position in the past (just remember the not shutting down of lulzsec/anonymous accounts). The actions of Twitter in the NBC case and the close sponsorship alliance between both make Twitter appear as a very weak when it comes to standing up against corporate interests.
s_henry_paulson 14y ago
I fail to see how this is similar unless you have proof that someone filed a complaint and Twitter failed to act on it.
- dannyr 14y ago
  So are you saying that even if Twitter knows about Spike Lee's violation (which they likely do), Twitter does not have to act unless somebody files a complaint?
  - willurd 14y ago
    Don't worry everyone, I have just filed a complaint (above). I'm sure Twitter will suspend Spike Lee's account as soon as they receive it. /s In all seriousness, you all might want to fill their inboxes with similar complaints.
    - stfu 14y ago
      Do you have a blog or something like that? Don't know if this gets enough momentum just from within the comment section. If you wrote a post on that I am quite certain it would go to the front page.

frogpelt 14y ago

The Twitter Rules state "Privacy: You may not publish or post other people's private and confidential information, such as credit card numbers, street address or Social Security/National Identity numbers, without their express authorization and permission." The lines are a little blurred when they consider an executive's email address which is already on a public website to be private or confidential contact information. On the other hand, Twitter probably decided that suspending one user rather than upsetting NBC was an okay trade off. That appears to have been a miscalculation. I doubt Twitter will suffer very long for it.

zippie 14y ago

Whether or not the e-mail address could be found out with "30 seconds of free time and access to Google" is irrelevant. Posting private information about someone violates twitter's TOS and therefore the account was banned. The fact it's someone who criticized a sponsor of twitter is irrelevant because that account would not have been suspended if an e-mail address (personal information) had not been posted.

incision 14y ago
Common sense says that published corporate email addresses don't qualify as private. I wonder if Twitter will ban me for posting your "private" Hacker News username?
- zippie 14y ago
  Not to be flippant but where exactly is the e-mail publicly posted? I wasn't able to find it on NBC's site. I also don't consider my HN username private because it is shown on a public forum (and I understand that it would have been).
  - alayne 14y ago
    It was on this page at least http://www.fidei.org/2011/06/boycott-nbc-removed-under-god-from.html http://www.fidei.org/2011/06/boycott-nbc-removed-under-god-f... Amusingly, Gary's email address is all over the Internet now. Couldn't twitter have just removed the offending message and saved themselves the negative publicity?
jonknee 14y ago
It's the fact that they don't enforce this policy that makes it controversial. How about to email Tim Cook about something? Plenty of tweets with tcook@apple.com in them.
- zippie 14y ago
  His e-mail is public information - it's widely available on Google. Gary Zenkel's is not. http://searchengineland.com/nbc-olympic-executives-email-wasnt-widely-available-in-google-128973 http://searchengineland.com/nbc-olympic-executives-email-was... Beyond that, how would you like it if your e-mail, home address was tweet'ed out and you were heckled?

gmisra 14y ago

I wonder what would have twitter done if this happend in March 2011, and the e-mail address in question was that of a Libyan secret police "executive"?

crag 14y ago

Wait.. Twitter notified NBC who then "filled out the forms" to have this guy suspended? I thought Twitter didn't monitor users tweets?

brianwhitman 14y ago
The article says "He quoted an NBC spokesman as saying: "Our social media department was actually alerted to it by Twitter and then we filled out the form and submitted it." I can read this in one of two ways: Twitter (the company) alerted NBC, or Twitter users on the social network Twitter alerted NBC. There's not much clarity there, but obviously the former is scary and confusing and the latter happens all the time.
- untog 14y ago
  the former is scary Depends a lot on context. If Twitter had said "FYI, one of your e-mail addresses is currently publicly visible on our service, expect a deluge of e-mail", I don't see a huge problem. If they said "Hey, want us to ban this guy?" then that's something different.
  - shrikant 14y ago
    From here[1]: 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. Looks like your latter situation is exactly how it went down. [1] http://blog.twitter.com/2012/07/our-approach-to-trust-safety-and.html http://blog.twitter.com/2012/07/our-approach-to-trust-safety...
    - crag 14y ago
      OK then.. this is serious.

ashbrahma 14y ago

Looks like his account has been restored: http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/07/31/twitter-restores-the-account-of-journalist-suspended-over-nbc-olympics-protest/ http://thenextweb.com/insider/2012/07/31/twitter-restores-th...

da_n 14y ago

"The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership..." I'm really worried about what Twitter is becoming.