Sorry but the fact that twitter did this to Techcrunch must be masking people's views here, otherwise I can't understand the comparison with someone's diary.

At the end of the day I value journalism of this kind which is in part investigative and doesn't, to my uneducated eyes, appear to have any personal cost. I'm not sure how interesting it was in this case, but in general "wasn't supposed to be published" is about a fraction of the rationale that needs to be there for a media organisation not to publish.

At the end of the day, TC broke a story here and leaked something Twitter didn't want out in the open. They took a hit on traffic and, by extension, to their exposure which as a media company presumably is a measure that affects revenue. Therefore Twitter deprived TC of revenue as punishment for publishing information they didn't want to see in the public eye.

That's a bad thing, for me, for a media company to have done and it is unusual + interesting.

Well, so while Twitter "deprives TC of revenue as punishment" (can you even say this with a straight face? Really?) is a crime, but TC hurting Twitter's image is perfectly OK? I'm lost here...

Also keep in mind that providing TC with this revenue from Twitter is strictly their good will and should not be taken for granted. Do you really not see this?

Of course I see what you're saying, its not a question of whether it is or isn't good will - it's whether you're comfortable with a company exercising this kind of power against a media company on the basis said company wrote something which was unfavourable.

As far as depriving revenue goes, I'm obviously talking up the effect because I find the stance Twitter took interesting. I'm not suggesting this is tens of thousands of dollars and I don't think its less interesting just because it isn't.

TC certainly shouldn't be in the industry of doing this or that because they do or don't hurt Twitter's image.

So TechCrunch behaved like jackasses and showed stuff Twitter didn't want to have shown, while according to your theory using Twitter as a way to make money, and that's okay?

It's called biting the hand that feeds you, and it's an old old saying. If TC still hasn't figured out it's a bad idea, nuts to them.

I'm probably slightly playing devils advocate but I don't mean to be controversial for the sake of it, I just think this is interesting.

TC is media/journalism and even if that's at a tabloid level personally I do believe that companies shouldn't withdraw privileges or sanction a media company based on unfavorable stories being written about them.

I think its a bad precedent to set even on this minor scale.

But TechCrunch is wholly unprofessional. They have no standards. You can't have morals when you're dealing with amoral people.

Say what you will about Mashable—and I could say tons—they generally play the game earnestly and fairly. While I don't hate TechCrunch and enjoy a few of their articles, it's a scum site with scum standards.