According to BuzzFeed, following the biggest social media Olympics history in 2012, the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia could be a veritable social media Siberia.
That’s because Russian media outlets are reporting that any journalists who use “amateur-standard technology,” aka cell phones, to take photos or videos of events and post them to social media netowrks like Twitter, Facebook, or Vine, will be “immediately stripped of their credentials.”
The quote, attributed to Vasily Konov who is the head of the state-run R-Sport news agency that is running the Games’ accreditation, said that this would be considered a “serious violation.” Only journalists specifically accredited with special badges, and who are using ‘professional equipment’ will be allowed to share such shots and videos.
Konov later called the quote a “monstrous lie,” but it was reported by a range of outlets including Radio Free Europe.
This comes after accusations by sports.ru that their correspondents were denied accreditation because they are a competitor of R-Sport.
They probably need to focus on cracking down on doping first.
Not really a surprise there. Russia censoring? Never. How did they get the Olympics?