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No Social Media In These College Stadiums
RawJoe writes "Today, the Southeastern Conference (SEC) is expected to release a final version of its new media policy that, at the moment, can best be described as a ban on all social media usage at SEC games. Earlier this month, the conference informed its schools of the new policy, which says that ticketed fans can't 'produce or disseminate (or aid in producing or disseminating) any material or information about the Event, including, but not limited to, any account, description, picture, video, audio, reproduction or other information concerning the Event.' Translated, that means no Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TwitPic, or any other service that could in any way compete with authorized media coverage of the event. In the case of the SEC, authorized media coverage rights belong to CBS, who has a $3B deal with the conference over the next 15 years, according to The St Petersburg Times." Good luck with that. To quote Clay Shirky, "The idea that people can't capture their own lived experience is a losing proposition."
So in other words, I am not allowed to tweet, "Haha, the Bengals lost again?"
My sister opened a computer store in Hawaii. She sells C shells by the seashore.
That's nice. I'm releasing a new policy that anyone who says my name 3 times has to send me a $100 check.
So what if they release a policy? It's not like they have any sort of legal standing to enforce it. What are they going to do, stop selling you tickets?
As a longtime Gator I'm trying to imagine what kind of hell trying to police this will be. And that is from the prospective of being a Gator being that UF is pretty damn uptight when it comes to how they expect us to act at our home sporting events. Never freaking mind what happens at Ol'Miss or UT games.
Yeah, good luck with that SEC.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Hope this sucks the money out of college sports so the schools go back to teaching.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
The idea that Twitter is even remotely related to 'higher education' just seems, well, bat shit insane.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
Since people are generally stupid enough to not care until someone is sued, my prediction is that you will see no ban/contempt or consideration of protesting in any way. I think the best protest would be that no one go to the games until the agreement changes, but no - that wont happen either.
Stupid rules should lose them BIG money.
People are no longer political minded enough to care. The voting polls are an indication of that.
I can assure you that I wont go to any event unless I happen to get free tickets; then I will create a twitter account and post comments about a you-tube video I just posted about the event and invite others to do the same, or comment about CBS and their oppression.
There is another social medium, without which the whole event's existence can't even be proven: Good old fashioned direct human-to-human communication.
In other words: Does this contract rule (as opposed to a law) forbid people to memorize it and then tell it to other people (e.g. by talking to someone later)?
How would they expect to enforce or even check this? They can't control it. They would have to delete the memory inside the brain every time someone steps outside.
So if people can tell someone, then that other person can put in on a social medium site, because he/she never had a contract or anything with the SEC.
Which makes the rule pointless and by definition ineffective.
They have to face the fact, that the time of exclusive "big media" broadcast rights is over. Besides: Who watches it on "big media" anyway nowadays? I have no TV for nearly a decade now, and many friends of mine don't have one either. Or they only switch it on, to zap for some time, find that nothing is on, and switch it off again.
Is TV still that big in the USA? (Germany here.)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Students are a mere adornment at these football institutions. Football for the students? What a quaint idea . . .
You pay with a credit card? You're a famous blogger?
It's times like this I wished I watched sports so I could boycott them. Oh well, guess I will continue not caring.
Be careful mate.
"First they came for the Communists, and I didn't speak up, because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didnâ(TM)t speak up, because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up, because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak up for me."
Pastor Martin Niemoller (1892-1984)
Moved to http://soylentnews.org/. You are invited to join us too!
Because intentionally violating the unjust rule is forcing their hand into enforcing it, thus revealing it to be unjust. I'd liken it to "colored" protesters back in the 60's who sat in the "whites only" sections fully intending to be arrested or to mothers who congregate and all breastfeed their babies together at a restaurant that bans breastfeeding everywhere except in the restroom stalls. (Would you want to eat your meal on some of those toilets?) Let's see the stadiums eject 100 fans per game for tweeting and see what kind of press coverage they get.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
Well, in a way, they are. What I'm trying to say is that they couldn't care less if you tweet to your friends or post to Facebook.
What they ARE interested in is controlling coverage of the game that competes with that of CBS. If you happen to be working for a newspaper, Web site, TV station, blog, or podcast that hasn't been blessed by CBS and/or the SEC, they're gunning for you. After all, you might do something crazy like publish real-time coverage of a game, a frequently-updated scoreboard, or, heaven forbid, you might interview a player. Want a video clip to use? Pay up. Want to post that footage you got of a player sucker-punching an official? Not unless you get approval. Want to do anything that CBS or the SEC doesn't want you to do? They'll show you the exit and place a boot in your ass at no extra charge.
If you want to really piss off the SEC, forget a mass tweet protest. No, start an unauthorized Web site providing coverage of SEC events, and make it better than what the SEC and CBS offer. That'll get their attention in a big way.
The whole mega-sport-corp thing strikes me as utterly ludicrous. Does anyone here remember when sport was about the actual game?
As far as I can tell it all started going downhill as soon as some guy figured out he could make money off sporting events.
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
Take some time to think through what you just wrote.
That has nothing to do with feminism.
Breastfeeding is a natural thing, there is nothing feminist about wanting to do it in public when needed.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
To add another Shirky quote...
"The loss of control you fear is already in the past."