Twitter Permanently Banned A User For Posting GIF Of Aly Raisman At Olympics

Jim Weber is a contributor to Athlon Sports and Awful Announcing, and according to a post on Wednesday, he was “permanently banned” from Twitter during the Olympics. Weber apparently posted a widely-available GIF of gymnast Aly Raisman’s floor routine and had his account suspended.

Weber also posted GIFs of a Japanese wrestler celebrating with her coach and a Chinese diver getting a Perfect 10. He was contacted by Twitter support along with a message from the International Olympic Committee, then had his account suspended for violating the site’s copyright policy.

Weber now has a new handle and is publicizing his story:

Here’s the thing, GIFs and videos of the action in Rio were all over Twitter during the 2016 Olympics. The fact that Twitter singled out one guy and banned him because of pressure from the IOC is pretty lame. Why was he singled out while others weren’t? Twitter should probably answer that question and a few others about this case.

Weber’s now-banned account had more than 69,000 tweets and around 100,000 followers. The fact that he was singled out for something thousands of users were doing is crazy.