The Times' latest FSU story was flagged as spam on Twitter
The New York Times published another story Friday detailing how Florida State football players have received preferential treatment from the Tallahassee Police Department, most recently with a hit-and-run that turned into two traffic tickets.
Unfortunately for the paper, it appears the always-vigilant Seminoles fans on Twitter may have decided they had had enough reporting of the school's misdeeds and flagged the link as spam en masse, causing the social media site to block it from being shared.
This is what you see when the link is clicked from a tweet:
Screenshot via Twitter
The Times later clarified that it was unclear why the link was flagged as spam. A spokeswoman from the paper said that a Times link has never before been flagged as spam on the social media service "to the best of our knowledge." Twitter also issued a statement on why the URL was flagged:
In a statement, a Twitter spokesman said that the New York Times link, or URL, “was mistakenly flagged as spam today, by an outside organization that tracks spam sources. We quickly restored access to the URL and apologize for the error.”
A Times editor tweeted his thanks to FSU fans for the exposure to the story.
The Times has previously reported on the school's handling of allegations against Heisman-winning quarterback Jameis Winston, in addition to other instances in which football players actions were not properly investigated.
- Brendan Maloy
