Twitter apparently suspended the account of a journalist who was critical of NBC’s coverage at NBC’s request — yet it’s not clear that journalist/comedian Guy Adams [broke any of Twitter's rules](http://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-outed-nbc-to-journalists-critical-tweets-2012-7#ixzz22D08Rcl9):
>Users of the social network vented their anger against Twitter yesterday after Guy Adams, a foreign correspondent for the Independent, was suspended without warning from the site after posting a series of critical tweets about NBC’s coverage of the Olympics.
>One of the tweets urged his followers to send their views to Gary Zenkel, the president of NBC Olympics. Mr Adams subsequently published Mr Zenkel’s corporate email address and a complaint was filed by NBC.
>But in an email to The Daily Telegraph, Christopher McCloskey, NBC Sport’s vice-president of communications, said Twitter had actually contacted the network’s social media department to alert them to Mr Adams’s tweets.
This is a black eye for Twitter, especially now that NBC has said Twitter’s employees actually notified *them* of Guy Adams’ account.
With NBC and Twitter entering into a partnership during the Olympics, the conflict of interest is pretty clear.
Here’s a thought for Dead Tree Media (like the New York Times); fire up your own microblogging service (base it on FOSS Status.net) and treat it like it was run by journalists. I always wondered how a more vertical microblogging service would fare — especially if you recruited journalists from several large international newspapers. As it stands, relying on social media means you’re relying on someone else’s platform, and things like this are bound to happen (and more frequently as the pressure to make money grows).
Keep writing, Tom Chandler.
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