Twitter Gets Some Olympics Athletes in Trouble and Then Some

So athletes, reporters, and whoever is in London watching the Olympics have been encouraged to use social networks 'only when they need to.' Of course, they can't block people from tweeting or posting updates from the event, but they can mete out punishments they deem appropriate to those who post offensive content.

Since the Olympics began, we've had athletes getting banned, Twitter protests, a major hate campaign against a broadcaster, and an arrested Olympic fan. We rounded up all the ways people got in trouble because of social media over at the Olympics, which you can check out after the jump.

Banned! Voula Papachristou, a triple jumper from Greece, was banned from joining the Olympics because she posted a message that mocked African immigrants. Shame on you, Voula.

Racist comments. After judo fighter Rafaela Silva lost her match, people took to Twitter to insult her over it. One such message read: "You're no better than anyone else because you're BLACK." But what does race have to do with it? Nothing, nothing at all, because ability or athleticism has absolutely nothing to do with race or the color of someone's skin.

Twitter lockout. After British reported Guy Adams called out NBC for their poor Olympics coverage and posted the work email address of NBC Olympics president Gary Zenkel, Twitter subsequently suspended his account. This came after NBC filed a complaint against Zenkel, and Twitter insisted that he posted an "individual's private email address." Weird thing is, the email Adams posted was Zenkel's public one, which can easily be Googled online. Go figure.

Sent packing! Swiss footballer Michel Morganella displayed a case of poor sportsmanship when his team was defeated 2-1 by South Korea. He was sent home after he took to Twitter to insult his opponents, calling them a "bunch of mongoloids."

Twitter protest. A lot of athletes are irked at the Olympics' endorsement rules, which limits their ability to promote the sponsors that helped them reach the event in the first place. Sanya Richards-Ross, Nick Symmond, and a bunch of other athletes that Nike sponsored took to Twitter to criticize the said rule and the hashtags #Rule40 and #WeDemandChange subsequently went viral.

Threats and an arrest. A 17-year-old man was arrested after he insulted and threatened British diver Tom Daley when the athlete placed fourth in his event.

Banished. Teammates Kenrick Monk and Nick D'Arcy have been told to leave the athletes village when the swimming competition ended yesterday, August 4th, after they posted images of themselves posing with guns on Facebook. (Seriously, guys, what were you thinking?)