KINGSTON, Jamaica — ATHLETES competing in the London Olympic Games have been given a list of rules to guide their online behaviour, according to an article by Ad Age Digital.

The article on adage.com states that the International Olympic Committee has released comprehensive “social-media blogging and internet guidelines” for this year’s games. Four years ago no such guidelines existed for the Beijing Olympic Games.

The rules speak to the use of photos, video and audio, as well as domain names and URLs.

A site, olympicgamesmonitoring.com, has also been created for the purpose of ensuring that “the integrity of rights-holding broadcasters and sponsor rights as well as the Olympic Charter is maintained.”

So far the Australian Olympic Committee has banned two swimmers from social media use for tweeting photos deemed inappropriate. 

They had posted photos of themselves posing with guns during a US training trip. The ban is in place for one month, it began on July 16.

Social-media experts say these bans likely won’t be an isolated incident, given the inherent difficulties in policing thousands of athletes, many of them amateur, from 204 countries over the course of 17 days.