The International Olympic Committee has claimed it has ‘no regrets’ over dubbing the 2012 games ‘the first social media Olympics’, Marketingweek.co.uk reports.
An IOC spokesman, Mark Adams, said “IOC media channels have about 15 million fans and it is actively encouraging people to engage with the Olympics via Twitter and Facebook.”
This comes after the recent Twitter-related incidents involving some athletes. Tom Daley was met with abusive tweets after a disappointing performance in the men’s synchronized diving finals, however he then used the medium to publicly out the offending person - who was subsequently arrested on suspicion of malicious communications.
This isn’t the only Twitter scandal that has arisen so far at the Games, as the Swiss football player Michel Morganella was expelled for posting an offensive tweet during the Games. The tweet was aimed at South Korea.
The IOC itself has also had criticism over the level of enforcement by event officials looking to prevent Wi-Fi overload, reports Mashable.com. Apparently, the IOC urged sports fans to tweet less often because it was affecting data systems and broadcasting coverage.
Mr Adams was asked about the concerns and said “clearly issues are raised more quickly but they’re still the same issues we have [always had] to deal with.”
It seems for now that the social media strategy taken by the IOC seems to be effective – but not without controversy.