That’s right – banned. Not limited or restricted – just banned. Oh, you say, there can’t be any teeth in that policy. How could he possibly enforce that? Fear might work since he has already suspended one player indefinitely from the team because of breaking the rule. If there is any question, Mashable reports

Following a few suspect tweets by team members, Coach Mike Leach has announced that Texas Tech players are now banned from Twitter altogether. SportingNews also reports that one of the offending Twitterers, offensive lineman Brandon Carter, was “suspended indefinitely for violating team rules and his Twitter page was nowhere to be found.”

Honestly, I am at a loss on this one. Here is one of the tweets that Carter floated

My hope is that there is more than this tweet used to suspend someone like this kid indefinitely. There was no finger pointing except at himself so that seems to be harsh. I will say that there could be more to this since this was the only tweet from Carter that was shown.

All of this points back to the need for organizations from companies to sports teams and all stops in between to understand that the world has changed. Whether it’s for the better or not is not the debate. Right now, it is just a fact that it has. Everyone is going to have to be definitive in their stance but there may need to be a little flexibility moving forward like the SEC (Southeastern Conference) did recently regarding the use of social media in any form as it relates to the events that are in a college stadium in the league. I did a double take on that one because it is just asinine to even think it let alone say it.

We have seen social media in sports be addressed by the NFL and other colleges in other sports. We have seen social media addressed in a variety of ways by companies and organizations worldwide as well. My question is are we any closer to actually understanding what the implications of using or banning social media will be in the near and long term?

Go ahead, Pilgrims, take your shots (or your swings or –insert sports cliché here-).

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On Monday, the league announced that it had modified its social-media policy to limit Twitter and social-networking use by players, coaches, league officials, and even the media.

The NFL said that it will let players, coaches, and other team personnel engage in social networking during the season. However, they will be prohibited from using Twitter and from updating profiles on Facebook and other social-networking sites during games.

In addition, they will not be allowed to tweet or update social-networking profiles 90 minutes before a game and until post-game interviews are completed.

The rules even extend to people “representing” a player or coach on their personal accounts.

The NFL didn’t just stop with the league itself, though. The organization also said that media attending games will be prohibited from providing game updates through social networks.

It appears that the league is trying to extend the policy that has is used in the broadcast of the games which is usually read during a down time in the action by an obviously bored announcer restricting any retransmission or reproduction of the game and that it’s prohibited etc, etc. The NFL claims it is trying to prevent people from providing a play by play description during a game because it would be an unauthorized use of the product. How they intend to enforce this is another question altogether.

So will the players test the limits? Probably so, especially those who make up for on field lack of performance by over performance in the public eye via social media like Chad Johnson Ochocinco. How about the media itself? There are likely to many wannabe sports reporters out there (and actual ones as well) that will expand their coverage of these games and the ‘stories’ surrounding them via Twitter, Facebook etc. What will be interesting is just how the league metes out justice when the first violators are caught.

So why did I say that the NFL’s ‘No Fun League’ may not apply here? I think they deserve to exercise some control over how the product is presented at least around the games themselves. Imagine that a player misses a play or causes a penalty because he is busy tweeting to his adoring (bizarre) fans? Will it be a game or a media showdown? I like the games myself.

So your take? Whether you like football or not this type of situation is playing out in companies and organizations every day as the ‘rules of engagement’ in the social media world are being set on the fly. Precedents are being set and mistakes are being made all the time. Is the NFL setting a good precedent or committing the Internet’s version of a turnover?

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cnet reports that ESPN is putting the social media lid on its employees.

For ESPN, the social-networking revolution will not be televised–or tweeted, blogged, or Facebooked. Not for now, at least, and not without ESPN’s approval.

The sports network has apparently banned its workforce from posting any sports-related content on social-networking tools such as Twitter and Facebook without its permission. The news first came to light Tuesday when Ric Bucher, an NBA analysts for ESPN, tweeted that he had just received an network memo regarding tweeting:

The hammer just came down, tweeps: ESPN memo prohibiting tweeting info unless it serves ESPN. Kinda figured with was coming. Not sure what this means but

Ok, a couple of things here. I am a big sports fan. Probably too much so. While I don’t really care about the social media musings of ESPN ‘personalities’ apparently many do as indicated by the 18,000 followers that Bucher has amassed (I know, I know most of it is junk but …). Unless there are national security implications around some sports what can happen here? Can someone slander the network? If they do you have another recourse called firing them. This may actually help a company like ESPN weed out the nit wits on their staff. Will they ‘break’ a story that turns out to be wrong? I say so what but I suppose there needs to be journalistic integrity even in something as ultimately unimportant as sports.

ESPN is not alone in its approach. Some NFL teams are starting to crack down on usage of the medium as well reports the New York Times. I’m a New York Giants fan and I suppose it would have been interesting if Plaxico Burress let us know of his exploits last November with a tweet like “Plax88 – Oh S&#$ I just shot myself in the leg. Can I go to jail for that?” But then there were social media screw-ups like Washington Redskins player Chris Cooley who showed part of his playbook and his ‘bits and pieces’ on his blog last year. The NFL appears to be trying to simply limit the exposure of some of the dumbest human beings on the planet to keep the embarrassment to normal levels.

So how does your company approach social media usage by employees? We are constantly spanning the globe for the constant variety of social media policies (hat tip to the Wide World of Sports intro of a different era). When do you put the social media handcuffs on and when do you take them off? Your opinions would be appreciated. We know you have them.

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Late last week MySpace responded to notices from the RIAA by banning all ProjectPlaylist widgets from its site. Yesterday Facebook followed suit.

"The RIAA initially contacted Facebook last summer requesting the removal of the Project Playlist application for copyright violation, and recently reopened those communications. We have forwarded the RIAA’s letters to Project Playlist so it can work directly with that organization and music labels on a resolution. In the meantime, the application must be removed to comply with the Facebook Platform Terms of Service…

The ban occurred because of user-created videos that insult Ataturk, Turkey’s founder, and we in no way approve of these clips.  It’s just that somebody, somewhere, has to realize a whack-a-mole approach to deleting them (and/or banning YouTube) isn’t working.

The current situation puts Turkey’s government in a light that makes it look more silly than authoritative.  Google’s support of free speech appears weaker every time it gives in.  No one’s winning.

In America, people representing George Washington and Abraham Lincoln sell hamburgers and hawk cars.  The practice isn’t exactly "nice" or respectful, but it does no real harm.  Turkey’s government will need to either get used to the Ataturk videos, accept that YouTube can’t instantly take them down, or just spare everyone the back-and-forth and enact a permanent ban.

Or it can keep intermittently blocking the site.  At least the routine gives us something to write about.

“We’re doing this as a temporary measure while we investigate how much use – and misuse – our people make of Wikipedia, and what we can do about it,” explained Ministry spokesman Ivo Hommes.

“You’d think it should be OK for someone to update an entry on their favourite football star during lunch, but obviously we don’t want people doing things that are tasteless or worse during working hours,” he told the AP.  Hommes’s comments came after a report that the Ministry’s computers had been used to make over 800 edits to Wikipedia.

The short-term loss of Wikipedia as a resource is somewhat troubling – I know all of your WebProNews writers visit the site on a regular basis, and Mike Masnick raises a few other objections – but, given the sheer number of edits, it’s hard to blame Hommes.

On the whole, he and the Ministry of Justice seem to be acting in a rational fashion.  It’ll be interesting to see what sort of final decision they reach; it may become a model for other businesses and governments to follow.

"This bill is pro consumer, pro innovation and pro technology," said Rep. Mel Watt, D-N.C., according to the AP. He is also one of the bills sponsors.

Rep.Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said a permanent ban would allow businesses to keep investing in the Internet and provide access that is affordable to users. He said by limiting the House to consideration of a temporary extension, Democratic leaders "want to leave the door open to taxing the Internet in the future."

Watt said there was a good reason for extending the ban and not making it permanent. "The Senate has not done anything yet and in many ways has made it clear that a permanent moratorium would be dead on arrival," Watt said. He went on to say that insisting on passing a permanent ban, "runs the risk that time will run out before the month ends and the moratorium will run out before the month ends."

The bill HR 3678 will now go to the Senate. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. Is expected to pick up the house passed measure for a speedy Senate vote.

eBay Presses Congress For Internet Tax Ban

Bieron did not say directly that eBay would be hurt without the ban but he did point out that the effects on ecommerce would be far reaching.

"More importantly, fewer consumers will use the Internet," Bieron said before the committee. "And, for the small businesses using the Internet, that means fewer sales and less opportunity to compete with the mega retailers."

Congress first enacted a moratorium on taxing Internet access in 1998. The moratorium does not allow state and local governments to tax the connection to basic Internet content. It has been extended twice since it was first imposed but is due to expire on November 1.

Bieron estimated that 720,000 small businesses use eBay as their main or secondary marketing channel and said it was a "lifeline" against major retailers. He said through eBay 15 percent of sales of U.S. small businesses are exported and small businesses can find products from around the globe on the site.

If Internet access is taxed then small businesses could see a 15 to 30 percent increase in their Internet bills.

Now, the Internet allows dissidents and protesters of all kinds to get information out of totalitarian countries much more quickly (although there are still restrictions that authoritarian regimes — such as those in North Korea and China — can use to make Internet access difficult or even impossible).

The latest example of this phenomenon in action is the steady flow — or at least trickle — of information that has come out of Myanmar over the past week, as hundreds of thousands of Buddhist monks have taken to the streets to protest the totalitarian rule of the military junta that controls the country (formerly known as Burma). Although many of the posts are written in English, some are unreadable because they are written in Burmese, the language spoken by citizens of Myanmar (which is related to languages spoken in Tibet and China).

As a story in The Age notes, posting photos on blogs or even sending them via cellphone can put a Myanmar resident at risk of arrest, or worse. One blogger known as Moezack was posting photos of the protests regularly, according to a Myanmar native who runs a website for ex-patriates in Thailand, but his blog has since gone dark. Another prominent blog that has been posting updates comes from someone called Ko-Htike, who appears to work in the emergency department of a Myanmar hospital. He has been posting his thoughts as well as photos.

Another blogger named Mr. Jade has also been posting photos of the protests, including recent attacks on monks by Myanmar police and members of the army. According to at least one report, the army has been dressing soldiers in local police uniforms to try and disguise the fact that the military is part of the crackdown. One place Myanmar residents and ex-patriates have been getting information about the protests is a newspaper-style website called Mizzima. The site won an award from the International Press Institute earlier this year for its reporting.

Global Voices Online, a blog network spanning dozens of countries that was put together by Rebecca MacKinnon and the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University, has also been carrying news updates and commentary from bloggers in Southeast Asia related to the Myanmar protests. And so has another site for Myanmar ex-patriates called The Irrawaddy.

A blog called Justice and Injustice has photos pf the protests and a statement from someone named Aung Way that says: “We want three Fs. First we want freedom — we want freedom for our future; second, we want friendship — we want friendship between our army and our people; third, we want food — we want food to live peacefully.”

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