The National Football League has become the latest sports body to try to tame the use of social networks.

The NFL, which has an official Twitter account, issued an edict this week banning coaches, players and football operations personnel, or anyone representing them, from updating their status on Twitter, Facebook or other social media during games and up to 90 minutes before and after.

The ban also includes halftime, but players and other NFL personnel are free to tweet on their own time.

Oakland Raiders fans may be thinking this is the league’s latest slight against the Silver and Black, especially because three Raiders are prolific Twitter users – Kirk Morrison, Thomas Howard and Darren McFadden.

The league is also throwing the flag on the media’s use of social networks to post updates during games. Here’s part of a statement from the NFL:

“Internet sites may not post detailed information that approximates play-by-play during a game. While a game is in progress, any forms of accounts of the game must be sufficiently time-delayed and limited in amount (e.g., score updates with detail given only in quarterly game updates) so that the accredited organization’s game coverage cannot be used as a substitute for, or otherwise approximate, authorized play-by-play accounts.”

Understandably, the league is trying to protect its multimillion-dollar TV and radio contracts. But critics say the policy could prevent traditional media from using live blogs, Twitter or other technologies that are fast becoming standard tools for journalists.

This article appeared on page C – 3 of the San Francisco Chronicle

picture  is licensed by © BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons

© 2009, Alex Crabtree. All rights reserved.