While athletes and entertainers of all sorts regularly turn to social media to interact with fans and share no shortage of personal information, Major League Baseball has finally given a green light to the use of social networks like Facebook and Twitter.
“While having a Social Media policy is important to protecting the interests of everyone involved in promoting the game, we hope that you will not view this policy as a blanket deterrent to engaging in social media,” the MLB said today. “MLB recognizes the importance of social media as an important way for players to communicate directly with fans. We encourage you to connect with fans through Twitter, Facebook, and other social media platforms.”
Along with MLB’s extensive social media activities, we hope that your efforts on social media will help bring fans closer to the game and have them engaged with baseball, your club and you in a meaningful way.
According to NBC Sports, the policy “basically consists of a list of ten prohibitions.” Those prohibitions include:
- Players can’t make what can be construed as official club or league statements without permission;
- Players can’t use copyrighted team logos and stuff without permission or tweet confidential or private information about teams or players, their families, etc.;
- Players can’t link to any MLB website or platform from social media without permission;
- No tweets condoning or appearing to condone the use of substances on the MLB banned drug list (which is everything but booze, right?);
- No ripping umpires or questioning their integrity;
- No racial, sexist, homophobic, anti-religious, etc. etc. content;
- No harassment or threats of violence;
- Nothing sexually explicit;
- Nothing otherwise illegal.
Do you agree with the new social media policy endorsed by Major League Baseball?
Barbara Maldonado
My initial reaction to reading these guidelines is that it misses some of the biggest risks posed by player use of social media use. The use of the logo and team assets is secondary to crucial liability when players take to social media to advocate for contracting issues, use the masses to sway contracting issues or front office decisions – some of which may be public and not fall inside the confidential team information clause.
Social media can be a powerfully positive tool for athletes, hopefully in addition to all of the "don't" listed in their new Social Media Policy, they include information on all the great ways the players can use these channels to benefit their current teams and their future post-athlete careers.
Best, @bmaldonado