No Tweets, Instagrams, iPhones at the Olympics, authorities declare
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Oct. 28, 2013: Workers are fixing the Olympic emblem at an entrance to the railway station of Russia's Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russia. (AP Photo/Lesya Polyakova)
The 2014 Olympics might feel more like 1914.
Journalists attending the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics in Russia will be forbidden from using everyday technology to take pictures and share information -- the mobile phones and tablets that have woven themselves into the fabric of daily life, the Olympics committee said.
“Journalists using mobile phones to film athletes or spectators will be considered a serious violation and will result in cancellation of accreditation,” Vasily Konov, head of the state-run R-Sport news agency, which controls accreditation at February’s games, told a seminar for sports journalists.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}That means no iPhone pictures, no Vine videos, no Instagram accounts sharing the minute-by-minute details of the events, no Twitter accounts with updates and so on.
According to Russian news site Svoboda, the ban will including all mobile devices and tablets, including iPhones and iPads. Fans may be banned from carrying in professional camera gear as well.
Several journalists have already fallen foul of strict accreditation regulations surrounding the Olympics, Buzzfeed reported Monday, including Dutch journalists working on a multimedia project and a Norwegian TV crew.