More Twitter weirdness: Indy’s Guy Adams suspended, ‘offensive’ tweets now arrestable

Moreover, I just recieved a copy of a written statement from an NBC spokesman called Christopher McCloskey. It was issued via email this evening to Amy Willis, a correspondent at the Daily Telegraph, in answer to her query regarding how NBC’s complaint came to be lodged with Twitter, and how NBC originally became aware of my original Tweet.

Mr McCloskey states (and I quote): “Our social media dept was actually alerted to it by Twitter and then we filled out the form and submitted it.”

Unless he is lying, this means that my account was suspended after Twitter decided, at its own behest, to get in touch with a commercial partner in order to encourage them to have a hostile journalist removed from the Twitter-sphere.

Surely this runs against everything your company is supposed to represent? And surely it completely undermines Twitter’s entire raison d’etre, corporate ethos, etc?

Meanwhile there was more Twitter weirdness today as a 17-year-old was arrested over an offensive Tweet aimed at British diver Tom Daley making reference to his dead father. As many others have noted, if being offensive is now illegal Britain’s prisons will be soon filled with Twitter users – and half the columnists on Fleet Street.

Although many Twitter users rely on the cloak of anonymity, it appears that this is paper thin if there is any sort of legal demand for more information – as exemplified by the fact Twitter has agreed to hand over all the information it holds on spoof tweeter @UnSteveDorkland to Northcliffe following a legal challenge.