Recently a journalist for Independent, Guy Adams, went on a rant about NBC’s coverage of the Olympics and exuded a special amount of rage toward an NBC executive, deciding to release the exec’s email address in the Tweet. His Twitter account was suspended originally, but has since been reinstated and he has received an apology from Twitter. The reasoning behind the suspension was not for the rant itself, but for releasing the email address, which did violate Twitter’s terms of service.
Adams is not the first, nor will he be the last person suspended or eventually kicked off of Twitter entirely for violating their rules. Although many posts that are disturbing to the masses are protected by freedom of speech, social media does have certain rules that their users must abide by. If you would like to keep your Twitter account, here are a few of the cardinal rules you should not break:
1) Avoid Posting Specific Personal Information of Others – This includes phone numbers, email addresses, physical addresses, and credit card information. If you do not have permission from the person to do so, just don’t do it. So if you got into a fight with your friend and decided retaliate by Tweeting “Call Angie for a good time (305)-123-4567 !!! #friendsbtrippin” there’s a good chance Twitter will suspend your account.
2) Do Not Threaten Anyone – This should be a simple one to follow, but unfortunately few people follow it. Many “threats” are actually meant to be humorous between friends, but as we learned from the recent situation involving Olympic Diver, Tom Daley, who received hateful and threatening Tweets involving his late father from a 17-year-old that has since been arrested, threats are not taken lightly when posted on Twitter.
3) Copyright infringement, illegal activity and pornography – Frankly, there have been too many cases of criminals being caught because they bragged about their crimes on Facebook or Twitter. If you think the post you’re making could be illegal, just don’t post it. Don’t post photos of your 16 year old girlfriend in lingerie, don’t post quotes as your own words and don’t take a video of you and your buddies smoking pot and share it on Twitter.
Has your Twitter account ever been suspended before? Was it for the above reasons, or something else entirely? Comment below and share your stories!
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