[liberationtech] Independent UK Critic of NBC has Twitter account suspended after network complains

[Jillian C. York]

And just to be clear, Simon, this is where Zenkel's email address was
found: http://www.fidei.org/2011/06/boycott-nbc-removed-under-god-from.html

The post is fron June 2011, thus the information was indeed previously
posted on the Internet before being put on Twitter.

On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 2:48 PM, Jillian C. York <jilliancyork at gmail.com>wrote:

> Mashable says it's 8 Google pages in:
> http://mashable.com/2012/07/30/twitter-journalist-suspended/
>
> Twitter's rules contain this sentence: *If information was previously
> posted or displayed elsewhere on the Internet prior to being put on
> Twitter, it is not a violation of this policy.*
> *
> *
> If Twitter wants to remove that sentence from their rules, that's their
> prerogative, but until they do, they're full of it on this one.
>
> On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 1:47 PM, Simon Phipps <webmink at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Where is Zenkel's e-mail on that page? I've yet to see a report that
>> substantiates it was easy to locate on the web prior to this incident.
>>
>> But more to the point, Twitter appears to be coming clean here. Their
>> policy says a bona fides complaint is met with preventative suspension,
>> followed by reinstatement after review and, if necessary, assurances. For
>> an organisation dealing with approximately infinite transaction levels,
>> that seems about the only workable policy.
>>
>> In this case they assert that their NBC-attached team acted incorrectly
>> by proactively reviewing traffic. They also imply that, had the Trust and
>> Safety team been advised how the complaint arose, they would likely have
>> acted differently. They have apologised for what they did wrong, left
>> themselves free to continue to follow their (probably correct) policy and
>> avoided commenting on the journalist's actual (borderline) behaviour.
>>
>> Since I don't see it in the thread below, here's Twitter's apology, which
>> is worth reading & re-reading to get the implications as well as the
>> details:
>> http://blog.twitter.com/2012/07/our-approach-to-trust-safety-and.html
>>
>> S.
>>
>>
>> On 31 Jul 2012, at 21:24, Bernard Tyers - ei8fdb wrote:
>>
>> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> > Hash: SHA1
>> >
>> > Hi Jillian,
>> >
>> > Thanks for explaining the details. Pardon my language but...FFS. This
>> is disgraceful.
>> >
>> > Adams used publicly available information like this:
>> http://www.linkedin.com/pub/gary-zenkel/3/569/126 and Twitter closed his
>> account?
>> >
>> > In which case, if I were Adams, I would release my legal attack hounds,
>> and sue Twitter under what ever legislation they could.  Anyone from the
>> EFF Legal want to comment?
>> >
>> > That is disgraceful. Another example of why I believe Twitters
>> self-censorship "internal struggle" earlier this year was an easy out for
>> them.
>> >
>> > I hope Adams doesn't take the usual "we're sorry" excuse thats trotted
>> out.
>> >
>> > Bernard
>> >
>> > On 31 Jul 2012, at 16:13, Jillian C. York wrote:
>> >
>> >> Bernard,
>> >>
>> >> Twitter's explanation was not that the statement was defamatory, but
>> that Adams had posted private information.  The email address he posted,
>> however, is not private: it is available on NBC.com.  That's the entire
>> case.
>> >>
>> >> -Jillian
>> >>
>> >> On Tue, Jul 31, 2012 at 1:39 AM, Bernard Tyers - ei8fdb <
>> ei8fdb at ei8fdb.org> wrote:
>> >> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
>> >> Hash: SHA1
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> (Slightly devil's advocate/contrarian POV)
>> >>
>> >> Interesting story, and Adams probably has a case but it never ceases
>> to amaze me when people disconnect their "real world" brains from their
>> "Internet" brains.
>> >>
>> >> I would be the first person to complain if someone's free-speech was
>> taken away, however, if Adams has said anything defamatory in his Twitter
>> stream, then he is still bound by "real world" laws.
>> >>
>> >> Just because I say something defamatory or libellous about person X on
>> the Internet, doesn't mean that *IF* it's found that a "real-world" legal
>> process cannot be executed.
>> >>
>> >> Most people using the Internet may not understand that, but I would
>> have expected journalists to understand it.
>> >>
>> >> Is it illegal to suspend someones services for naming an executive of
>> a media company for doing XYZ in the USA? I have no idea.
>> >>
>> >> If it is illegal, then people need to speak out against a ridiculously
>> brain-dead law.
>> >>
>> >> If it is not illegal, people need to complain to Twitter for freedom
>> of speech. Twitter need to rewind their equally brain-dead actions and
>> apologise to the guy.
>> >>
>> >> Now, if he has said nothing "illegal" on Twitter, then IMHO, fire up
>> the legal drones Guy. This I unfortunately have direct experience of. At
>> this point it becomes (certainly in parts of Europe) a case of "who's got
>> the bigger legal team".
>> >>
>> >> (My reasoning comes from Bruce Schneier's argument on laws specific to
>> "cybercrimes". To paraphrase "Prosecution can be difficult in cyberspace.
>> On one hand the crimes are the same.....The laws against certain practices,
>> complete with criminal justice infrastructure to enforce them, are already
>> in place....Fraud is fraud, whether it takes place over the US mail or the
>> Internet.")
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> On 31 Jul 2012, at 00:17, David Johnson wrote:
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> http://sports.yahoo.com/news/olympics--critic-of-nbc-has-twitter-account-suspended-after-network-complains.html
>> >>>
>> >>> --
>> >>> David V. Johnson
>> >>> Web Editor
>> >>> Boston Review
>> >>> Website: http://www.bostonreview.net
>> >>>
>> >>> Twitter:
>> >>> http://twitter.com/BostonReview
>> >>> Tumblr: http://bostonreview.tumblr.com
>> >>>
>> >>> Cell: (917)903-3706
>> >>>
>>
>>
>
>
> --
> *+1-857-891-4244 |** jilliancyork.com | @jilliancyork *
>
> "We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the
> seemingly impossible to become a reality" - *Vaclav Havel*
>
>
>
>


-- 
*+1-857-891-4244 |** jilliancyork.com | @jilliancyork *

"We must not be afraid of dreaming the seemingly impossible if we want the
seemingly impossible to become a reality" - *Vaclav Havel*
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