The Olympics put restrictions on athlete's Tweets  

Posted by Jeffrey Millan in

After telling her 35,000 Twitter followers that she would not be able to post any blogs till the winter Olympics are over on the 3rd of March, American skier Lindsey Vonn sparked some controversy about the actual rules regarding athletes and social media during the Olympic games. Director of Media Services for the United States Olympic Committee, Bob Condron, states there is no Olympic rule about a black out period for athletes.

After further analysis of the rules, there is a restriction that states athletes must limit their posts to their personal experiences. Meaning, athletes can not act as journalist reporting the events around them, the must post their blogs in a first person format. To cite a specific rule, rule 49 of the Olympic Charter says that "Only those persons accredited as media may act as journalists, reporters or in any other media capacity." Condron states that it is going to be quite the opposite at the Olympics, "These are going to be the Twitter Olympics," says Condron. "There's no telling where the updates will come from. It could be the bench during a hockey game, or even on the medal stand."

Read more here.

2 comments

Alicia Schofield   says February 6, 2010 at 11:48 AM

This is really interesting. It is true that an athlete could update their Twitter from the bench, giving away results and thus giving some people no reason to watch an event cause they know how things will end up. I never would have thought of restricting Olympic athletes social media use, but it's a good idea to limit them in this situation, at least for precautionary measures. It shows that the Olympics really notice the power of social media.

Anonymous   says February 8, 2010 at 10:48 AM

Although this might conflict with freedom of speech, this helps famous individuals to learn how to manage their own public relations. The views of celebrities are altered with tweets, blog posts, and Facebook statuses, so it is only fair that the Olympics should ask participants to hold off on such activities for a little while. So many people have gotten into trouble because of social media and the Olympics is too huge of an event to have to deal with a media crisis. This seems to be a good plan and I believe it will do the athletes well.

Post a Comment

Newer Post Older Post

Categories

Followers