The modern world has seen the rise of social networking and blogging. The world became more and more connected to each other, through the internet. People are able to learn of experiences, stories and lives very far from their own, all in a few clicks.
The internet and social networking has also incited a more free world in terms of speech. As long as it was not in violation of any laws and rules regarding privacy and individual rights, anyone can speak out and be heard or read. Blogging and video blogging is no longer done by the registered journalists of the world. Everyone is now a journalist of their own right.
Twitter is a very popular social micro-blogging site that allows people to write short accounts of what they feel, what they think, what they’ve done or witnessed in their daily lives. It is a very viral form of sharing your life through the internet. That was exactly just what British journalist Guy Adams was trying to do – share to the world his experiences.
If you have been living under a rock for a while now, you probably don’t know much about the Olympics. The Olympics this year is said to be the grandest and largest one ever. It is also the most talked about and shared event. The power of the modern world’s smartphones has encouraged a lot of people to use social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter to share information to the world. In fact, with so many Tweets being posted recently regarding the Olympics, Twitter had a major melt down, almost begging for people to slow down.
Twitter is again in the in the news again regarding the Olympics. Twitter has been said to have been corrupted by NBC Sports who has failed to show the live coverage of the 2012 Olympics opening ceremony. This has disappointed Adams, and he was simply airing out his dismay in Twitter, highlighting that people with the same complaints rise up and helps him make NBC Sports aware.
NBC Sports did in fact notice Adams and his appeal, and rather than making an apology, take the complaint to positively bolster service to the people, NBC Sports has opted to silence Adams. No, they didn’t kill him; they just “coaxed” Twitter to kill his account.
According to Christopher McCloskey of NBC Sports, the reason why they had complained to Twitter was because Adams apparently gave out private information regarding one of their staff – NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel. The funny part is that the email address of Gary Zenkel is not even private at all. What was shared was a corporate email that is publicly visible on the NBC site.
The social networking site then proceeded into closing Adams’ account, calling his attention to the violation of the rules. Adams claims to be innocent, and refuses to perform an apology as Twitter suggested to restore his account.
Twitter is then implicated further when NBC claimed that it was the social networking site itself that alerted them of the situation. It would seem like Twitter was looking for a good excuse to reduce the load on the server caused by users like Adams. It was no secret that they were urging users to stop Tweeting for a bit.
It would seem that Twitter is no longer as neutral as they had claimed, nor do they encourage freedom of speech. They have pretty much gone against everything that the world thought they stood for. People will notice, and this might just put Twitter in a less than favorable position.
Image sources: hotel-blogs.com, eternalremont.blogspot.com
