Usually when we talk about censorship, we talk about communist societies and governments which unfairly oppress those living within the boundaries. However, such environments aren’t the only places where humans are unfairly restricted. Real censorship and oppression comes a lot closer to home for many of us. This time, it’s professional athletes who are feeling the heat.
Within the last year or so, we’ve seen various professional sporting leagues such as the NBA and NFL decry personal social networking accounts for players in various forms. In the case of the NBA and NFL, it’s a simple blanket ban on any social networking by players within a set time limit before and after games. With several multi-million dollar news contracts and such, it’s easy to see why the ban stands. Though, that doesn’t make it right.
If you though the NBA and NFL were bad, think again. They’re nothing compared to the crackdown Manchester United is forcing upon their players. The fine professional athletes of MU would take a pre/post game ban with stride seeing their current situation — they aren’t allowed to have any personal social networking accounts. Those that did have personal accounts such as Twitter and Facebook have had said accounts taken over by the team.
At this point I’m sure you’re all wondering why MU would do this? While the team hasn’t come out and outright announced or stated anything, the general consensus is that the team is doing it solely to drive more traffic to their own webpages — a downright shitty move for sure.
Generally when some individual, organization, or government tries to limit ways in which citizens can simply live out their lives, the determined get to working on a work around. In this case there isn’t much the players themselves can do.
But it really begs the question: Why force people to come to your teams official webpage? If you have to force people to use your product, you aren’t doing something right.
It’s quite sad really. Hopefully those running MU will come to their senses…or at least remove their heads from their asses.
