Twitter suspends journalist's account after he publishes NBC exec's email in row over Olympic coverage

Twitter has suspended the account of a journalist working for a British newspaper after he posted the email address for an NBC executive following a row over Olympic coverage.

Along with many other journalists and Olympic fans, Guy Adams, The Independent's Los Angeles bureau chief, had been a vocal critic of NBC after it chose not to air the Opening Ceremony live.

NBC, which which has exclusive rights to the Games in the U.S., instead aired the extravagant show during prime time, leading Adams to call the network 'utter, utter b******s' on his Twitter page.

Guy Adams, the Independent's Los Angeles bureau chief
Gary Zenkel, President of NBC Olympics & EVP

Row: Guy Adams, The Independent's Los Angeles bureau chief (left), has been kicked off Twitter after posting the public email address of NBC's Olympic's boss, Gary Zenkel (right), whom he had criticised

Oops! Twitter shut down the page claiming he had violated its policy by posting private contact information

Oops! Twitter shut down the page claiming he had violated its policy by posting private contact information

Enraged, Adams encouraged his Twitter followers to email NBC's Olympics President Gary Zenkel with their complaints.

'The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven't started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com,' he wrote.

The site responded by promptly shutting down Adams' account.

Twitter claimed that, in posting the email address, Adams violated their policy. The social networking site is an official partner of NBC's Olympics coverage.

'It is a violation of the Twitter Rules to post the private and confidential information of others,' a representative wrote to Adams in an email, which he forwarded to the Wall Street Journal.

But in his response, Adams argued the address he published was public and available to 'anyone with access to Google'.

Guy Adams tweet
Outraged: Adams posted a string of scathing tweets about the Olympics coverage on NBC before encouraging fans to contact 'moronic' Zenkel with their complaints

Outraged: Adams posted a string of scathing tweets about the Olympics coverage on NBC before encouraging fans to contact 'moronic' Zenkel with their complaints

Twitter's policy states: '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.'

Adams, who had criticised the coverage and NBC's hosts on his Twitter feed @guyadams throughout the Opening Ceremony, instead suggested the network complained over his negative comments.

An NBC Sports spokesperson denied this, saying: 'We filed a complaint with Twitter because a user tweeted the personal information of one of our executives.

'According to Twitter, this is a violation of their privacy policy. Twitter alone levies discipline.'

In a blog on The Independent, Adams recounted the events of Friday that led to the suspension.

Missing out: Adams, who argued that the email address was out there for anyone with Google to find, had criticised NBC for delaying the Opening Ceremony until prime time programming

Missing out: Adams, who argued that the email address was out there for anyone with Google to find, had criticised NBC for delaying the Opening Ceremony until prime time programming

After posting his tweet containing the email address, 'a few dozen people "re-Tweeted" the update over the ensuing hours,' he wrote.

'Several of them used the hashtag #NBCFail, which, thanks to the broadcaster’s comically inept coverage of the London games, has since been a trending topic on the microblogging site.'

He added in his email to Twitter: '[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 network has also outraged viewers across the country after it omitted a tribute to the victims of the London terrorist bombings in 2005, deeming that it wasn't 'tailored to the U.S. audience'.

GUY ADAMS: THE 'OFFENDING' TWEETS BEFORE ACCOUNT WAS SUSPENDED

From @guyadams

'Am I alone in wondering why NBColympics think its acceptable to pretend this road race is being broadcast live?'

'According to NBC's commentary team, the Surrey countryside is full of "chateaus" #ffs!'

'[Host] Matt Lauer: "Madagascar, a location indelibly associated with a couple of recent animated movies." #tosspot'

'Matt Lauer would do well to shut up, wouldn't he?'

'Techcrunch call @NBColympics total buffoons. Sums up why Gary Zenkel, moronic exec behind the time delay, shd be fired'

'America's left coast forced to watch Olympic ceremony on SIX HOUR time delay. Disgusting money-grabbing by @NBColympics'

'I have 1000 channels on my TV. Not one will be showing the Olympics opening ceremony live. Because NBC are utter, utter b******s.'

'The man responsible for NBC pretending the Olympics haven't started yet is Gary Zenkel. Tell him what u think! Email: Gary.zenkel@nbcuni.com'
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181273/Guy-Adams-Twitter-suspends-UK-journalists-account-publishes-NBC-execs-email-row-Olympic-coverage.html
www.dailymail.co.uk
crawl=CC-MAIN-2016-40
333678
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:MHMUO4C4ZJLK2TOCT4AXAXXZMTAPQDWT
<urn:uuid:5085f1b6-91b1-4a7b-bd60-3424621f1459>
2016-09-27T08:46:57Z
23.219.88.215
sha1:S7QX2IN5CI7K2DQC5T6PESNVRZLLUETC
<urn:uuid:2bcedf07-cebe-4a91-bfab-46f876ab140f>
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2181273/Guy-Adams-Twitter-suspends-UK-journalists-account-publishes-NBC-execs-email-row-Olympic-coverage.html
length
response
<urn:uuid:59da3747-2a1b-4853-a116-acd8bdc30e8f>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-143-35-109.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2016-40
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web for September 2016
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf