I've never actually clicked on Twitter's "report abuse" button, but I'd imagine that Twitter's CEO found out when the NCAA started snooping on his page recently. That's because over the weekend, the NCAA reported an abuse of a minor violation committed by Twitter's CEO Dick Costolo on Twitter. The violation occurred when Costolo, who is a Michigan alum, tweeted an innocent congratulations to Class of 2014 commits Wilton Speight and receiver George Campbell, who chose to "Go Blue" over the weekend.
@WiltonSpeight @GeorgeCampbell0 amazing! #goblue
— dick costolo (@dickc) July 29, 2013
However, because he's a Michigan booster, Costolo is not allowed to have any communication with prospects, even if they've already signed a National Letter of Intent. “We are aware of a potential minor violation involving social media,” Michigan spokesman Dave Ablauf told USA Today's For The Win that an NCAA violation was committed, but that it was a minor one.
@dickc @WiltonSpeight @GeorgeCampbell0 VIOLATION! @ncaa
— Evil Bert (@EvlBert) July 29, 2013
It's not that serious, but it's amusing that the NCAA considers that type of interraction to be worthy of monitoring. It's almost like they're cops taking their focus away from the crack dealers within their sport so they can focus on the drivers with expired plates. You can understand now why some coaches ban their players from Twitter.
It's unclear what exactly the NCAA is guarding against here. If they're worried about boosters offering illegal benefits, monitoring Twitter for a transaction is like the DEA waiting for a drug deal to go down on the White House lawn. It's not going to happen.
