[MUSIC]. >> Hello. In this video we will examine the limitations in the use of social media during the Olympics. This has been a very controversial issue in every edition of the Olympic Games since Beijing 2008. The communication situation of the Olympic Games has changed remarkably with the advent of social media. As I have previously explained, in old media, organizations, producers and broadcasters controlled the communication flow. On social networks each user is a communication broadcaster. The dissemination of messages created in this way depends on the number of followers a message has, Facebook, or its ability to become a trend, Twitter. In this case, the contents of a social media such as Twitter are linked to the ability to build large television audiences. Usain Bolt's performance in the 200 meter final provoked more than 80,000 tweets per minute and the 100 m gave rise to 74,000. With the aim of moderating the abundant new streams of communication created during the Games by different actors, athletes, coaches, and other members of the official teams in the Games, in the Beijing Games, the Vancouver games, the London Games and the Sochi Olympic Games, the International Olympic Committee published the document IOC Social Media and Blogging Guidelines. This document published by the International Olympic Committee encourages athletes and official staff to publish their experiences... This document published by the International Committee encourages athletes and official staff to publish their experiences by posting, blog or tweet as long as they do it in first persons and it does not concern aspects related to the competition and they do not reveal confidential information. Consequently, they must always be in keeping with the Olympic spirit. Comments that interfere with the competition or the ceremonies of the Olympic Games or with the role and responsibilities of the International Olympic Committee, or the Organizing Committee of the Olympic Games are forbidden. In order to protect the exclusivity of the audiovisual rights of the right holding broadcaster and the sponsors, the publication of audio and video material made during the competition is prohibited. On the other hand, the athletes and official staff cannot promote any brand, product, or service using social media during the duration of the Olympic Games, in line with the guidelines of the Rule 40 of the Olympic Charter. which also protects the interests of the TOP Sponsors and official sponsors of the Olympic Games. The Social Media Guidelines also protect the Olympic brands and symbols, prohibiting their appearance in publications. Thus, the International Olympic Committee considers that such rules are justifiable on two grounds: ethical seeking to ensure that respect and fair play reign supreme inside and outside competition among athletes and their support staff, coaches, physicians, managers, and financial, protecting official sponsors, television right holders and Olympic brands. These measures were criticized for restricting the freedom to communicate because, according to some authors, it was brutally evident that the International Olympic Committee had no understanding of the role social media platforms have played in shaping the way the world, and more specifically the Millennial generation, communicates today according to Lopez. These onerous communication rules reveal to what degree new media, which turn every Olympic actor into a communication broadcaster, can affect freedom of expression and communication and rules of coexistence. New rules for new social uses. The first consequence of these norms occurred before the start of the London Games. On 22 July 2012 the triple jump athlete Paraskevi Papachristou was expelled from the Greek Olympic Games team for making a scornful or supposedly racist comment on her Twitter page concerning African immigrants in Greece. The publication rules for social media established by the International Olympic Committee comprised an essential response to the challenge of the changes brought about in the forms of communications with the advent of social networks. The need to put order into athletes' freedom of expression has too many limitations, particularly on the two previously mentioned grounds: ethical, which could be considered acceptable if we believe that, a mega-event like the Olympic games, the Olympic values of friendship, excellence, and fair play should reign supreme, and that the sole protagonist should be sport. And financial, if we believe that protecting television rights holders and sponsors should be adapted to the new, diverse social media reality where everyone is a broadcaster with enormous potential to gain a following, which is particularly the case for certain athletes. [BLANK_AUDIO]
