Techmeme's Gabe Rivera weighs in on Guy Adams' Twitter suspension

Brett T. | 9:57 PM on July 30, 2012

Twitter’s suspension of journalist Guy Adams so soon after his brutal criticism of NBC’s Olympics coverage certainly didn’t pass the smell test, but Techmeme’s Gabe Rivera has provided a thoughtful defense of Twitter’s actions.

Twitter, of course, has teamed with NBC to cover the 2012 Olympic Games, and it was NBC’s complaint — that Adams had violated Twitter’s terms of service by tweeting the non-public email address of NBC’s Gary Zenkel —that led to the suspension. Rivera argues that Twitter may have had a point. Just what is a non-public email address?

But in Twitter's defense, just because an email address appears in a few places on the internet doesn't make it "public" in the usual sense.

— Gabe Rivera (@gaberivera) July 30, 2012

@gaberivera Maybe, but it's virtually impossible to adequately define "public" and "private," and there's nothing in Twitter TOS on this.

— Adam L. Penenberg (@Penenberg) July 30, 2012

@gaberivera Even when it's [email protected]?

— Lauren Weinstein (@laurenweinstein) July 30, 2012

I think a reasonable interpretation of "public" would be email addresses a company publicizes for public use. /cc @blake @laurenweinstein

— Gabe Rivera (@gaberivera) July 30, 2012

As many pointed out, it’s not hard to figure out a business address. But does that make it public?