Mmmm, Orwellian. (Photo: flickr.com/revstan)

Twitter has not had a great 48 hours. After spending years developing a reputation as an especially open and free-speech-friendly platform, suddenly the company looks an enthusiastic handmaiden to corporate interests. And so it's none too surprising to see a lengthy exegesis of corporate policy, complete with apology, appear on the official blog.

Of course, the company had little choice after NBC ratted out them out to the Telegraph, revealing that Twitter had contacted NBC and suggested they file a complaint regarding the gadfly journalist Guy Adams, who'd been lambasting the network's Olympics coverage, including posting the email address of an NBC Sports exec. That complaint, of course, resulted in Mr. Adams' suspension from Twitter, thereby quieting his nonstop complaints but unleashing a torrent of Internet fury.

Twitter's tardy response, authored by general counsel Alex McGillivray, explains that, "The Trust and Safety team does not actively monitor users’ content," adding:

In all cases, whether the user is the head of a major corporation, a celebrity, or a regular user, we require a report to be filed at our abusive users webform. Not only do we need a report, but we need a report from the person whose private information has been posted, or someone who is able to legally act on their behalf.

Mr. McGillivray brings it home with the final insistance that "We do not proactively report or remove private information on behalf of other users, no matter who they are."

That's all well and good, but the policy clearly wasn't followed in this particular instance. And yes, Twitter owns up to that fact and apologizes:

That said, we want to apologize for the part of this story that we did mess up. The team working closely with NBC around our Olympics partnership did proactively identify a Tweet that was in violation of the Twitter Rules and encouraged them to file a support ticket with our Trust and Safety team to report the violation, as has now been reported publicly. Our Trust and Safety team did not know that part of the story and acted on the report as they would any other.

Chloe Sladden, Twitter's VP of Media, also issued her own mea culpa:

I want to personally apologize for this oversight: blog.twitter.com/2012/07/our-ap…

— Chloe Sladden (@ChloeS) July 31, 2012

But as other observers have already pointed out, this wasn't exactly an isolated incident. You can't ride two horses with one ass. Is Twitter going to be a media company, partnering with outlets like NBC to feed peppy real-time updates into its coverage? Or will it be an open platform, an unregulated firehose where gleeful users can pile onto and usurp a hashtag for their own, often anarchic purposes?

Meanwhile, yet another Olympian has been shown the door for offensive remarks made on Twitter.

That choice of official mascot with an all-seeing, all-recording eye just looks more and more appropriate, doesn't it?

Not to stereotype or anything. (Photo: flickr.com/s_w_ellis/)

Time to check in on the Twitter-lympics! How are the first social media games going? About like we expected. Well, we're not sure who's pulling ahead in the athletic arena, but looks like we've already got an instance of outstanding PR clusterfuck. Someone's gonna end up with a headache over this one.

Deadspin reports that Guy Adams, a reporter for the Independent, has spent the last couple of days complaining about NBC's allegedly less-than-stellar coverage of the Olympic games (we wouldn't know, as we studiously ignore summer athletics). The tweets at issue are here, including such zingers as quoting anchor Matt Lauer's less impressive attempts to fill airtime ("Madagascar, a location indelibly associated with a couple of recent animated movies") and deeming him a #tosspot. Burn, ya'll.

Well, sometime over the last day, Mr. Adams' account disappeared. That left his fellow reporters to take to Twitter in restrained outrage, pointing out that the timing is awfully convenient for an embarrassed NBC looking for avoid any more allegations of fail:

My colleague @guyadams' Twitter account was suspended after @NBC complained about his tweets criticising the network's #Olympics coverage

— Kevin Rawlinson (@KevinJRawlinson) July 30, 2012

There's now a #saveguyadams hashtag, naturally.

However, Twitter's position seems to be that the suspension isn't about his criticism, but rather about the fact that Mr. Adams stepped over the line by moving beyond fomenting mass outrage about NBC's allegedly abysmal coverage (we wouldn't know, as we don't care for athletics) to posting the email address of NBC exec Gary Zenkel. From an email exchange with Twitter's customer support, forwarded to Deadspin:

Your account has been suspended for posting an individual's private information such as private email address, physical address, telephone number, or financial documents.

And:

It is a violation of the Twitter Rules to post the private and confidential information of others.

Well, aggravated customer feedback is a grand American tradition, no? If not, someone should tell the Observer's managing editor that he's no longer required to listen patiently to the occasional outraged little old lady. And we're frankly skeptical that an NBC Universal address really counts as "non-public, personal email addresses." For example, with a little bit of googling, we found it here.

UPDATE: Mr. Adams has posted his account of the events in question at the Independent. There's little new, but it's worth pulling out this point, from his remarks emailed to Twitter's head of European PR:

"Either way, [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."

UPDATE II: The New York Times has NBC's statement confirming that yes, they complained:

 “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.”

Twitter tells us they don't comment on individual users, for privacy reasons.

At any rate:

(Photo: Gif Hub of the Universe)

Get your own. (Photo: flickr.com/jspatchwork)

The first "Twitter Olympics" start Friday. And how is that going, so far? Let's just say the games are off to a rocky start, and we're popping popcorn in anticipation.

As we've mentioned before, the International Olympic Committe rolled into town with a long list of social media rules for athletes, volunteers and anyone with a press pass. The document concluded with a warning: “The IOC will continue to monitor Olympic on-line content to ensure that the integrity of rights-holding broadcasters and sponsor rights as well as the Olympic Charter is maintained.”

So how's that going? Well, it's not even day one and already an Olympian has been booted from the games for offensive tweets, athletes' complaints are going viral, and organizers are begging participants not to tweet about and therefore spoil the opening ceremony. 

Nor is Twitter their only challenge: As Deadspin reports, the organizers of the London Games somehow seem to think it's illegal to link to their site unless you're going to say something nice. (Trust us, that is not the case.) They've also banned WiFi hotspots from the games, along with heroin, skateboards and puppies. And let's not even get started on the free speech controversy.

We therefore can't help but wonder what'll happen with this attempt to turn the London Eye, that skyline-dominating ferris wheel, into a giant, Twitter-driven mood ring.

The Boston Globe reports that Sosolimited, an arts and technology studio, is using sentiment analysis to create a splashy light show. The firm has developed an algorithm that takes tweets tagged with Olympic-related hashtags, evaluates them for emotion ("lame," for example, scans as negative) and then translates them into a color, either yellow for positivity or purple for negativity. The Eye's lights will then be adjusted accordingly:

At 9 p.m., Sosolimited’s “visual­ concert” begins. First the day’s mood is reflected on the Eye. If, for example, 63 percent of the tweets expressed positive feelings toward the Olympics, most of the Eye would be lit yellow, with the remainder of the circle being black.

For the rest of the show, where images like smiley or sad faces are flashed, a yellow hue remains.

Given the London Olympics' rather determinedly upbeat flavor, we can't help but wonder what happens if that whole sucker lights up purple and proceeds with 20 minutes of frowny faces. Because it looks like a couple of people are already pretty cranky:

I already hate the London tourist 😡...giving you attitude thinking there on top of da world KmtI sure showed her! #Olympics #RudeAsHell

— Aiai Banks ❤ (@ladyshy369) July 25, 2012