Athletes briefed on rules for tweeting during London 2012 Olympic Games
The athletes participating in the London 2012 Olympics have been informed recently about the rules they need to follow while using social media during the Games. Although they have not been told to stop using websites such as Facebook or Twitter, they have
been advised to be careful how they use them. If athletes are found not following the rules, they could face exclusion from the event.
The International Olympic Committee (IOC) broke the news by stating that it is “actively encourages and supports athletes and other accredited persons at the Olympic Games to … post, blog and tweet their experiences.”
However, the advisory document also goes on to restrict the athletes by using social media “for commercial and/or advertising purposes.”
Other clauses in the document are aimed at giving the benefit to broadcasters and sponsors associated with the Olympics. The document makes this clear by specifically stating that the participants are not to be making use of social media to exchange video
or audio footage of any of the events or other activities associated with the Olympics. Furthermore, any narratives that the athletes would be making need to be done “in a first-person, diary-type format.”
While doing so, the athletes are told to respect each other and not to make derogatory comments or use abusive or otherwise inappropriate language.
However, athletes are not barred from taking pictures, as long as they do not violate the rules that have been sent to the participating countries.
The rules for using social media have been drafted after an incident in the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics. Julia Mancuso, a skier from United States, won two silver medals in the games. Right afterwards, her official website showed an increased amount of
activity after which the athlete was told not to make online sales of merchandise using her website.
It seems as if the organizers of the London Olympics plan to make holding the event for a third time the best one yet by taking care of all the problems that could arise beforehand. The first time that the city of London hosted the event was in 1908 with
the second time being in 1948.
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