Social media can be seen as a source of information today as there are millions of users who contribute to these social media networks such as Twitter, Facebook, blogs ,etc. on a daily basis.The topic of this blog post is to disscuss and identify some risks to a organisation as a result of users participation in Social Media. A phrase that will be uses in this blog is SMP (social media policy) , in this case of the IOC (International Olympic Committee) SMP’s is the organisation that will be discussed.
The 2012 London Olympics came with some controversy before the games even started involving the use social media with a Greek triple jumper expelled from the Olympics for posting a racist tweet which ended her 2012 Olympic campaign and was banned from the competition not only she was banned she had violated one of many rules that were given to all personnel involved in the 2012 Olympics, the IOC Social Media Blogging and Internet Guidelines for the London games shows that infringements of any rules will result in disciplinary actions. As the IOC is an International organisation these SMP and other policies are put in place to keep the IOC reputation as a governing body for international competition. There are many stories that involve the IOC SMP another would be the rule40 guideline talks about athletes competing in the Olympic Games from appearing in advertising during and shortly before the Olympic Games. This helps prevent ambush marketing which might otherwise utilize athletes to create an association with the Games. In other words it prohibits competitors from using social media to promote their sponsors. This lead to a Twitter campaign from Olympians from around the world under the hashtags #Rule40 and #WeDemandChange in an attempt to pressure the IOC to change this rule.
IOC’s SMP may have been put in place to restrict activities with social media but it was created for a reason to maintain as a International committee where there are thousands of athletes who need to follow these rules.Without these types of rules it may have caused more international incidents involving athletes, the Olympics games would be full of advertising. But when thinking about it social media and advertisement is what attracted many people to watch the games in the first place so as long as all social media activities are in the rules of the IOC there would be no problems, but in this case there will be some.
To conclude many organisations like the IOC have put SMP in place to keep their employees accountable for their actions, keep their image in a positive note and maintaining a good reputation so that legal actions don’t have to take place.Although IOC rile 40 didn’t go well with the athletes they would still stand be that rule knowing the public and athlete opinion will be different. As we have seen as for the athletes you can be banned but at a workplace you are likely to be dismissed from your workplace when breaking the SMP of your organisation.
References:
http://www.dundaslawyers.com.au/legal-risks-of-social-networking-for-business/
http://www.dundaslawyers.com.au/do-organisations-need-social-media-policies/#more-932
http://www.briansolis.com/2012/08/why-the-olympic-games-social-media-policy-failed/
Hi Thomas,
A informative and interesting post there. I actually never heard about the tweet that got someone banned from the Olympics! That is quite some news! However, I have heard of a case where a famous rugby player in the united states taking a photo of guns with a friend and uploaded it on Face Book. This incident came to the attention of many unhappy individuals.
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