ToKYO, Aug. 5 - Sharing videos from the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games on social media is not allowed, even for athletes, said the International Olympic Committee on Thursday as it looked to protect broadcasters' rights.
Elaine Thompson-Herah was briefly blocked from Instagram on Wednesday after she had posted videos of her victorious 100 and 200 metres races to her 310,000 followers, violating broadcast rights for the Games.
A Facebook spokesperson later said that while the content from Instagram was deleted, the suspension was wrongly applied.
We encourage people, we encourage everybody, to share still pictures of performances, but the video obviously belongs to rights-holding broadcasters, said IOC spokesman Mark Adams.
The IOC will receive more than $4 billion in broadcasting rights for the period, including the 2018 Pyeongchang winter Olympics and Tokyo Games, much of which goes back into the Games and includes supporting sports and athletes.
The biggest single chunk of that money comes from U.S. broadcaster NBCUniversal - which has paid $7.65 billion to extend its U.S. broadcast rights for the Olympics until 2032.
Adams said that 90% of the income from broadcasters that IOC gets is redistributed. That money goes to the IOC. We have to redistribute their rights and therefore the income which we can protect to athletes and sports.
Social media has become a key way for audiences to engage with the games.
In 2016, athletes have post extreme TikToks from behind the scenes, including jumping on their much-discussed cardboard beds to debunk claims that the mattresses were too strong to withstand vigorous activity and are therefore anti-sex.
So there is set of things: There is the risk of copyright, but there are other restrictions on the kinds of online content that can be posted from the games.