The US Open is warning players, their coaches, agents, family members, as well as tournament staff, to be careful of the information they reveal on the social networking site Twitter, so as not to violate anti-corruption rules.
Signs, written by the Tennis Integrity Unit, are being posted in the players’ lounge, locker rooms and referee’s office. The signs are warning that tweeting is not allowed on court during matches. But that’s not all – off-court tweeting is also under radar: “certain sensitive information concerning your match or other matches and/or players should be avoided. Depending on the information sent out this could be determined as the passing of inside information.”
I’m wondering what Serena Williams thinks about this. She has almost 1 million followers on Twitter, and tweeting, anyplace and anytime, is one of her favorite activities.
BTW: Here’s Women’s Tennis Blog’s Twitter page. 😉 (source: ESPN, photo by our reader Colleen)
Right… and there’s no other way the players can communicate with other people. Wow, Twitter is such an amazing invention.
Ok, there is other way, but Twitter is one great new way.
What I’m trying to say is, I see no point in banning Twitter from players because they don’t want “inside information” revealed when there’s so many ways players can communicate with their fans.
I don’t know where they will draw the line. For example, a player can tweet “I didn’t sleep well last night” and that can very easily be classified as insider information.
I fail to see what they are worried about. Maybe I am just dumb.
I think that they’re overreacting, and being overly cautious.