More details on WWE issuing social media violations Submitted by Aaron T-Bar Rift on 02/16/2021 at 09:22 AM
As previously noted, WWE is said to be issuing "violations" to talent for any social media posts that name a third party business, person, brand, or charity.
During Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com provided more details about the situation:
"The example I was given is – somebody had suggested to me tonight that if they took a photo and they’re eating an Oreo cookie, that, in fact, they could probably get away with eating the Oreo cookie no problem, no fines, no suspensions, anything thing like that, certainly not fired, but if they mention ‘Oreo’ then they’ve gone through the fine line. I don’t know if it’s mention or hashtag, it might just be hashtag."
"But anyway that’s the new social media policy, so this is Twitter and Instagram stuff essentially where you can’t be doing anything that is promoting another brand, even if you’re not getting any money and it’s not a commercial for them or anything, you cannot do anything like that. That is forbidden now."
"I guess the deal is that since they’ve explained they own your likeness, they believe they own your social media accounts too. But they’re gonna be lenient, this is actually being lenient, they could actually crack down worse because they own them. But this stuff you can no longer do, this is fining offenses, hash-tagging and promoting third party things, even if you’re not being paid for them."
"Even the ones who’ve changed their social media names from their work names to their shoot names, that doesn’t make a difference." (quotes courtesy of WrestleTalk.com)
Meltzer later provided an update on the policy:
"The new policy, which they say is not dissimilar to policies they have had for the past several months, is that talent is banned from monetizing their Twitter and Instagram by working with third parties. The company had already had this policy with Twitch, Cameo and other social media channels but had not specifically included Twitch and Instagram."
Regarding WWE's restrictions on Twitter and Instagram, WWE says this is about formal relationships where talent is monetizing with third parties and not informal photos that some in the company felt that to mean.
