USUALLY I am not one to complain about the horrors of globalization. Harping on the evils of international corporations is something that I usually leave to the children of the far left. However, even I have my limits, and the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens went just a little too far.
It would not surprise me in the least to find the lawyers of the International Olympic Committee knocking on the offices of The Cavalier Daily tomorrow as they have shown no less draconian efforts in the control of information in a thinly veiled quest for money. With the disappearance of the Cold War mentality of East vs. West, some have claimed that the games have faded into irrelevance, and while I had maintained hope they would be at least interesting (and the beach volleyball definitely was), a shadow of censorship has hung over the games.
To get an idea of how bad things have become one might try to add a hyperlink to the Athens 2004 Web site. Unfortunately their official "hyperlinking policy" prevents this. A page on the Web site provides a mail address where one may write to request permission to host a link directed to their site. I suppose someone forgot to tell them that the freedom to hyperlink other Web sites is how the World Wide Web was built in the first place. If no site was allowed to link another without permission, the Internet as we know it would cease to exist.
Unfortunately, the IOC does not stop there in their quest to control content on the Internet. CNN reported last Friday that "Olympians [were] largely barred from blogging." The IOC has issued a ban on any first-hand account by any athlete posted on the Internet. Their (flawed) logic is that only sanctioned news organizations were allowed to cover the games. However if a little known athlete had wished to post his progress on the internet he would have been prohibited from doing so until the close of the games.
Even after the close of the games, athletes are prohibited from posting pictures or video of themselves on the Internet unless they were taken by a licensed journalist recognized by the IOC at the games. An athlete wanting to show pictures to his friends could not even make use of photographs he took himself. As a former track athlete, I can tell you that posting funny pictures of teammates competing can be quite amusing -- tragically, this would impinge on the lucrative broadcast contracts.
NBC paid $793 million for the broadcast rights to the Olympics in the United States -- over three-quarters of a billion dollars for two weeks of TV. Naturally their rights as an excusive licensee should be protected. However, some of the measures taken have gone too far. The BBC was posting as many as five live video feeds on the Internet, but they were forced to geographically limit these feeds to just the United Kingdom. Anyone in the United States would be forced to make do with NBC's coverage. NBC, to their credit, has put some of the highlights online; though, in order to verify your location, you are required to enter a U.S. Visa credit card number. MasterCard is not a sponsor of the games, so they are not accepted.
For those in the States who did not have a Visa card or did not wish to watch the NBC feeds, Wired.com has reported that there were ways around the blocks. The Internet is such a geographically neutral place that it is not truly possible to restrict all traffic on a geographic basis. This attempt at limiting the flow of information will eventually fail, but in the meantime it prevents a problem for thosen Internet users who seek options.
I do not wish to criticize the IOC for seeking commercial sponsorship. On the contrary, the commercialization of the games has allowed it to continue into the modern era. The billions of dollars paid by various corporations for sponsorship rights have certainly helped with the massive costs of such an endeavor. However, now that the Olympics have come to a close, I can only hope that the next winter games will offer a little bit more in the common sense department. The IOC needs to recognize and embrace the freedoms provided by the Internet, not try to prevent athletes and Web broadcasters from disseminating information.
Daniel Bagley is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at dbagley@cavalierdaily.com.
Read More
PATEL: Personal development courses support students beyond the gradebook
By Heer Patel | 3 days agoThe University must rethink its approach to education beyond traditional major-specific requirements and mandate personal development courses.
EDITORIAL: Commercialization threatens U.Va.’s educational mission
By Editorial Board | 4 days agoAfter all, measuring the University’s worth in terms of accrued capital, operational efficiency and numerical rankings molds this space into just another cookie-cutter institution.
YOUNIS: Why every U.Va. student should say yes to English
By Ayat Younis | January 9, 2025Every student at the University, regardless of their primary field of study, can professionally and academically benefit from engaging with the English department.
