As the 2014 Winter Olympics kicked off, people had quite a few gripes about the decision to hold the games in Sochi, Russia—what with the unfinished hotels, oppressive political climate, and general fear of security breaches. Fortunately for the Internal Olympic Committee, all those complaints are being routed directly to a Spanish university with the Twitter handle @ioc.
Yes, despite many users pointing out the mistake—all this wrath should be inflicted upon @iocmedia, or @Olympics, or maybe @NBCOlympics—the innocent Open Institute of Catalonia is taking the heat for #SochiProblems. Maybe they offer a course in social media?
Well folks its another #NBCFail year. Can the @IOC please drop them and stream/ save everything on YouTube?
— Jonathan Montgomery (@JonMontgo) February 7, 2014
#olympics #sochi2014 Canadian Athlete censored…. let the abuse begin in SOCHI. @IOC are cowards!!! https://t.co/yCrToevy3R
— Bill Kind (@Bill_Kind) February 7, 2014
UN Sec.Gen Ban Ki-Moon @IOC “Sport has the power to advance human rights by promoting peace,tolerance,and equality.” pic.twitter.com/ENKR7S5ZfR
— Beckie Scott (@BeckieScott4) February 6, 2014
“Maybe there really aren’t any gay people in Sochi.” #sochiproblems @ioc @thestar @cnn https://t.co/E9mftRfHhg @slamsports
— Jason Allen (@JasonJamesAllen) February 6, 2014
#Sochi Travel Nightmare – https://t.co/FRPx6RwRkx Can the @ioc investigate where $50 BILLION spent has gone? Oh I forgot, #greed. #FAIL
— Eamonn Zaidan (@EamoZ) February 5, 2014
Russia’s 2014 Winter #Olympics an #Environmental Disaster https://t.co/g2IrgBYzxs via @ecorazzi #boycottsochi @ioc
— VeganGizmo (@VeganGizmo) February 5, 2014
Who at the @ioc is going to answer for the insulting, unsafe, and inhumane selection of #Sochi? @iocmedia #USA
— Loring Barnes (@loringbarnes) February 6, 2014
It bears mentioning that even if these tweets reached their intended target, the International Olympic is not really in the business of apologizing. In fact, it’s surprising that such a litigious organization hasn’t sued the Spanish school for using “their” initialism. (They are currently waging an expensive battle to prevent you from registering a new generic top-level domain with the word “Olympics” in it, just to give you some idea.)
But maybe it’s the Twitter whiners, not the Open Institute, who ought to watch their step:
https://t.co/rqtqbUSkkq So please don’t direct your Twitter bile to @ioc The Catalonians are very, very proud and feisty.
— Chris Matyszczyk (@ChrisMatyszczyk) February 6, 2014
Consider yourself warned.
H/T The Atlantic | Photo by Shawn Carpenter/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
