In a recent article over at the LA Times(1) , Brightkite CEO Jonathon Linner made a few interesting comments that were quoted. One of the best is, “Guys will go where the hot chicks are.” This comment basically prompted a Brightkite user, a female user, to post on the service that the CEO was, in effect, pimping out his female users.
This resulted in one of the users, a Twitter friend of mine, @LinuxChic being deleted from the Brightkite servers without warning(2) . LinucChic isnt the only user to be booted from the service. According to Twitter sources, three users have been booted for purportedly violating the ‘Slander’ sections of the TOS. The users, @gregz(3) (greggahs) @jomichele (jedijojo) and linuxchic were given no notice of their account terminations.
@greggahs said that his account was terminated “I posted a cartoon pic refering to @linner(4) as a pig being roasted? And a slut Barbie as the demographic? Based on his interview?“
According to a post on Twitter, linuxchic said she posted “BrightKite wants to be your pimp http://bit.ly/1u2WOe ” on her Brightkite account and as a result she was banned.
User jomichele, in a comment to Linner’s blog post over at the Brightkite blog, says that linuxchic’s account was deleted for “quoting the article, but no actual TOS violations. In fact, she had only 1 post, no fans & the comment that she made in Linner’s post, which was nothing more than a quote from the article. No slander. No liable. No TOS violations. Yet she was deleted out of what appears to be spite.” jomichele goes on to state that she (jomichele) is “truly and deeply sorry for obviously going over the line with my posts last night. I am as sorry for my poor decisions as you say you are for yours.“
In reading over the Brightkite TOS, I cannot find any ‘Slander’ section. I was able to find ‘ (iv) is defamatory, obscene, pornographic, vulgar or offensive; (v) promotes discrimination, bigotry, racism, hatred, harassment or harm against any individual or group; (vi) is violent or threatening or promotes violence or actions that are threatening to any other person;‘ under the General Terms. Now, having not seen the posts made by greggahs or jomichele I cannot say that they fall into these violations. At least by jomichele’s own admission, that may have been the case.
This still begs, based on what I know of linuxchic and what she told me she posted to the service, as to why she was banned. BK Ops, over in the comments under Linner’s blog post, said that some accounts, including one (not linuxchic) were due to “a seperate issue with some numbers that ATT sent over as deactivates“. This seems quite odd, as it came right after her critical post about the service pimping.
@linuxchic has received a personal phone call from senior Brightkite staff member. The phone call, off the record, confirmed what @linuxchic thought; her account was banned for the post referenced above(5) by what appeared to be an overzealous Brightkite staff member and that it was not a TOS violation. @linuxchic is taking a wait and see approach to see how Brightkite does from here forward.
From a recent Facebook posting, @linuxchic said, “My final opinion on my recent BK experience in a nutshell: You should form your own opinions of the service & the stance of the CEO towards you (the user & customer) based on all the experiences, posts, and comments of staff and users alike. I appreciate the show of solidarity from the community & my friends but don’t …feel you can’t go back to BrightKite if you want to. I will continue to keep my restored account at BK for now with the hopes that they redeem themselves. Personally I am disappointed in their 2.0 upgrade and the CEO’s opinion of his customers however, I really miss (the old) BrightKite.”
Footnotes:
Footnotes are for reference only and may have little, if anything to do with the text from the post.
- You can see the article here. [↩]
- ‘I have to assume that is what did it since I wasn’t contacted, just deleted.’ – linuxchic’s reply to me. [↩]
- gregz has since gotten back on BK under this new name. [↩]
- Not the CEO’s account on Twitter. [↩]
- BrightKite wants to be your pimp http://bit.ly/1u2WOe [↩]
Exciting, huh?
Popularity: 36% [?]
Additionally I was informed that no slanderous comments could be noted in my postings but that the decision came from Jonathon Linner (CEO) with out others input or knowledge … Guess his revenge against his users isn’t that sweet tasting about now
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by WiredPig: New Musing: Brightkite Pimping and Banning Users – http://bit.ly/74y1z3 #TOS #LINNER #BANNING #BRIGHTKITE #JOMICHELE #LINUXCHIC #greggahs…
My account termination definately would not have been caused by deactivation notices from ATT since I am not a customer. I have been told (second hand) that BK first said they didn’t know why I was deleted as there was no TOS violation from my account however, they have reversed their position and now say I violated TOS but have failed to provide proof of such alleged violation.
@linuxchic – I’m not overly surprised. It seems as though Linner has stepped on his dick and is now looking for a salve. Have you looked at Linner’s blog post?
@gregz – the whole thing stinks.
Irrelevant people making irrelevant comment. None if this will matter in a week and none of you will be remembered. Why do you really care enough to write something like this?
Wow…. aren’t you the articulate one.
To get to the heart of the matter is why I care. I never, if you took the time to read the posting, said that Jo Michele was not guilty of violating the TOS. Jo herself says that she did. I did point to @linuxchic who was banned for posting “BrightKite wants to be your pimp http://bit.ly/1u2WOe“.
But, as is evidence from the anonymity of your comment, you obviously didnt read the post to begin with to get even a vague idea as to what the content and subject matter was.
Reading: ‘Brightkite Pimping and Banning Users’ http://bit.ly/4OUHfE
Day of BK meltdowns continues. Freaky Friday 2009: http://blog.wiredpig.us/2009/12/04/brightkite-pimping-and-banning-users/
For the record, the postings I was deleted for were vulgar, obscene & offensive. I fully admit to that. Quite frankly, I think Linner’s reign as CEO of Brightkite has also been vulgar, obscene & offensive, but I digress. Linner issued his mea culpa, but it appears to be more of a half-hearted attempt at damage control than a real, honest mea culpa. The only reason I got any warning or notification about my account deletion is because I happen to be friends with someone at Brightkite. That person was also asked to deliver the message to me that I was banned for life. I don’t believe either Greggahs or Linuxchic received such a message from Brightkite. I also don’t believe Greggahs posts were ever in the same realm of harshness as mine were. And I fully believe Linuxchic got her account deleted out of shear vindictive spite. No one at Brightkite seems to be able to prove otherwise despite an investigation into why, exactly, her account was deleted.
Sources inside Brightkite told me that they recommended dealing with the offending article when it was originally published (Nov. 16th, 2009) but were overruled by Linner. Had Linner stood up and protected Brightkite’s & his reputation at the time the article was published, none of this drama would have transpired. Our outrage at Linner over his incompetence served to get our accounts deleted (some rightfully so, others not) and a backhanded apology for the user base. Sadly, I’m quite confident that no real improvements in the leadership at Brightkite will be made and the site will continue the downward slide it has been on since the disastrous rollout of Brightkite 2.0. This is just another in a series of missteps that the new Brightkite management has made and I’m certain that the pattern will continue.
@KeithBarrett actually no. http://blog.wiredpig.us/2009/12/04/brightkite-pimping-and-banning-users/
I just read ‘Brightkite Pimping and Banning Users’ http://bit.ly/4OUHfE
I discovered this morning that my BK account has been reinstated as quietly as it was deleted (minus my most recent post, avatar, and details).
I’m still pissed that you have not been given a proper reasoning nor apology. This is a shitty way to run a ’social media’ company.
I just read ‘Brightkite Pimping and Banning Users’ http://bit.ly/4OUHfE
I just read ‘Brightkite Pimping and Banning Users’ http://bit.ly/4OUHfE
I just read ‘Brightkite Pimping and Banning Users’ http://bit.ly/4OUHfE
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For the Record. Just after BK moved to their new format, my wife was about ready to give up on BrightKite, and just stick with Facebook. My Wife, isn’t as Geeky as most of us here, and the new Brightkite was confusing to use. The Buttons were in the wrong places, where one wouldn’t expect to find them etc.. So this little episode of Bright Kite just prompted us to delete our accounts and stay away from the service. I do miss some of the people that were on there, and I do miss the old style of BK, as it had been easy to use. – I’ve moved on to playing around with Posterous.com with it’s connections to Twitter and FaceBook, and find that it’s a good alternative with larger room for posts, and a short snippet for Twitter posts. –
FWIW: I also liked Jaiku for the same reasons that I liked Brightkite, but they seemed to be slow in posting pictures or something like that. And I don’t think that there was as good support for it with the BlackBerry. And as a BlackBerry user, I tend to stick with what works well with it.
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