The International Olympic Committee has released guidelines on how athletes at the 2012 Summer Olympics in London may engage in social media, an effort clearly designed to avoid the sort of confusion that occurred nearly 18 months ago in Vancouver.

“The IOC actively encourages and supports athletes … to take part in ‘social media’ and to post, blog and tweet their experiences,” the guidelines state (.pdf). “Broadly speaking, the IOC wants people to share their experiences through social media. As a general rule, the IOC encourages all social media and blogging activity at the Olympic Games as long as it is not for commercial and/or advertising purposes.”

What does that mean exactly? Well, if anything, it should certainly curtail the type of promo-only tweeting we often see from Olympic athletes. But beyond scaling back on this sort of commercialism that could distract from the competitions, IOC officials undoubtedly expect this move to cut down on some of the questions that arose during the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver, British Columbia.

More over, IOC honchos are expecting the athletes (as always) to best on their best Twitter behavior.

“Postings, blogs and tweets should at all times conform to the Olympic spirit and fundamental principles of Olympism as contained in the Olympic Charter, be dignified and in good taste, and not contain vulgar or obscene words or images,” the rules stipulate.

Additionally, no website URLs will be allowed to contain the words “Olympic” or “Olympics” in the primary domain, unless they have been pre-approved by the IOC. And, as before, fans and athletes will not be allowed to post audio or video of any events to Twitter, Facebook or personal blogs.

But tweeting video of these ginormous Olympic rings hanging from Tower Bridge? Go nuts, Olympic-goers.

Photo courtesy London 2012.