How To Unlock Twitter Account?

Is there truth to allegations that Twitter suspended a journalist's account for being too critical of NBC's Olympic coverage?

• That's what the headlines are claiming: http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics--critic-of-nbc-has-twitter-account-suspended-after-network-complains.html Adams said in a column for The Independent that Twitter claimed he crossed the line by tweeting out Zenkel's corporate email address and encouraging his followers to contact the executive directly. The email address is easily identifiable, common with how thousands of NBC/Univision employees' email addresses are determined. Twitter soon suspended Adams' account, he said. In a story he wrote in The Independent, Adams wrote that after filing an article critical of NBC's coverage, he checked his Twitter account only to find it had been suspended. When he inquired why, he received the following response: "Your Twitter account has been suspended for posting an individual's private information such as private email address." With that, the account was gone. And a controversy was born. Adams said he emailed Rachel Bremer, Twitter's head of European PR, to dispute that he broke Twitter's rules. The email address Adams tweeted wasn't a private address belonging to Zenkel, Adams wrote, but a corporate one attainable to anyone with access to Google. "It's no more 'private' than the address I'm emailing you from right now," Adams wrote Bremer. "Either way, [it's] 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 journalists who are critical of their Olympic coverage." The decision, as expected, has gone over poorly on the website, where the freedom to express one's opinions, especially against high-ranking executives of multinational corporations, is highly valued. Which makes the decision a colossal mistake. You could argue forever whether Zenkel's corporate email is really "private." You'd have to be a trusting soul to think Twitter really cared. The issue here is that NBC and Twitter formed a corporate "partnership" for the London Games "to bring Olympic coverage and social conversation to viewers everywhere," according to a pre-Games news release. "During the games, Twitter is using its Olympics events page to highlight insiders' views, and to encourage people to watch NBC's on-air and online coverage." So, first, they team up and then coincidentally one of the network's most relentless critics gets booted from the website? Earlier this year, film director Spike Lee tweeted what turned out to be an incorrect home address for George Zimmerman, the accused killer of Trayvon Martin. Twitter didn't suspend Lee's account. The Tweets: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/nbcfail-journalist-at-the-independent-has-twitter-account-suspended-after-complaining-about-nbcs-coverage-of-london-2012-olympics-7987906.html

• Answer:

  Yes, there is truth to it. The article from yahoo.sports can verify that. If you do a simple Google News Search of Guy Adams there are a bunch of stories to verify that his account did in fact get suspended. However it wasn't simply for being critical of NBC. His account was officially suspended because he posted an email address. NBC sent a complaint to Twitter and they pulled the account down. Twitter has a policy just like any other website. It states that you cannot post other peoples private information. Now some people may believe that Gary Zenkel's (NBC Olympics President) corporate email was private and others believe it not to be private. If his email can be found anywhere publicly before the tweet was posted then, fair game, so to speak. It is unclear if Guy Adams has explicitly violated Twitter's Terms of Service. However, Tuesday, Guy Adam's account was re-instated, after NBC supposedly told Twitter to back down and pulled the plug on the complaint. Here is a nifty Forbes article about it -> http://www.forbes.com/sites/kashmirhill/2012/07/31/nbc-is-the-real-loser-in-guy-adams-v-twitter/