• subscribe
    • General

    @NYTOnIt Twitter account suspended after real New York Times complains

    Tiff over trademark, The Times Is On It

    Emily Senger
    <p>People pass the New York Times building in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012. The New York Times Co.&#8217;s stock rose on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012, after an analyst raised his rating and price target on the shares. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)</p>

    People pass the New York Times building in New York, Wednesday, Oct. 10, 2012. The New York Times Co.’s stock rose on Thursday, Oct. 11, 2012, after an analyst raised his rating and price target on the shares. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)

    The Times Is On It, a popular Twitter account that points out the sometimes obvious trend stories reported by The New York Times, was shut down after a complaint over a trademark violation from the paper.

    The real New York Times concern with The Times Is On It, which tweets at @NYTOnIt, was with its avatar, which used a version of the letter “T” from The New York Times.

    A spokesperson for the Times confirmed that they had, indeed, made a complaint and Twitter removed the account late Monday.

    But, much to the joy of fans, the now avatar-less account made its reapperence Tuesday morning, shortly after 7 a.m. with this tweet:

    The decision to reinstate the account came after the account’s creator, who identified himself as New York blogger and lawyer Benjamin Kabak, posted this statement on Facebook late Monday:

    “Twitter has suspended my account over a claim from The Times that my avatar violates a trademark. I say fair use. Right now, I’m waiting for Twitter to process my request to fix the problem so I can get the account reenabled. But feel free to spread the word over how the country’s largest newspaper feels threatened by a small Twitter account right now.”

    The @NYTOnIt account was named one of Time magazine’s 140 best Twitter feeds of 2012 and it has more than 20,000 followers.

    Now those followers can get back to giggling as @NYTOnIt pokes fun at The New York Times trend stories. For example:

    tags:social media