NFL Bans tweeting

Well sort of. What it has actually done is ban the updating of status or profile on social networks for the duration any NFL game and 90 minutes either side, a move meant to protect  proprietary information such as the score. Fair enough one might say, except this ban does not just cover players but also any of their third party representatives and the media.

In it’s own words the NFL said

“Longstanding policies prohibiting play-by-play descriptions of NFL games in progress apply fully to Twitter and other social media platforms,…Internet sites may not post detailed information that approximates play-by-play during a game.”

You may recall that Premier Football also made moves to protect its proprietary information earlier this year by issuing cease and desist notices to blogs that provided fixtures lists and live match updates, but that covered the wild frontier of the blogosphere, not established media outfits. While the banning of players, officials and representatives is covered by a, probably unenforceable, social media policy, one would think that trying to stifle the press would be directly against the First Amendment which prohibits the infringement of both free speech and the freedom of the press. Of course it is possible that the press will welcome this move as a way of also protecting its role as provider of the latest and most detailed sports news.

It has been suggested by some that this latest clampdown has been instigated by Chad Ochocinco, wide receiver for the Bengals, who has something of a twitter addiction. It was his sideline tweeting that seemed to get tweeting banned during games by players. Now he has been planning to tweet from the sidelines by having a competition winner sat in the crowd make the updates for him after interpreting pre-arranged hand signals, although the clip of Ochocinco talking about the contest on his uStream show on 26th August seems to have been pulled.

The Bengal’s first match is against the Denver Broncos on Sunday 13th Sept at 1300, local time, which surely will be the first test of the NFL’s new policy, might be time to switch to watching another oddly-shaped-ball game.