@NYTOnIt Twitter account suspended after real New York Times complains

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:

Related Posts

A note from the editor

Subscribe today and join a community of like-minded readers

Maclean’s Registration wall FAQ

You can read five Macleans.ca articles every 30 days. To read more, you must create an account or log in to an existing...

"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: