The laast grand slam of the year kicked off in a cloud of controversy. Under the guise of an anti-corruption campaign, the authorities in charge of the US Open are concerned that information put into the public domain might lead to corruption. Tennis superstar captured it perfectly.

This sort of story highlights the misconceptions and over-reactions that new technologies face. There's a misunderstanding of what Twitter can mean. If a tennis player is truly corrupt, he or she isn;t going to use the public forum of Twitter or Facebook. They'll have a private cellphone and send discrete SMS or make private phone calls. Are tennis authorities going to ban phones, socialising and all communication?

Rather than just slapping a ban on Twitter (apparently there are signs in the change rooms and player areas) tennis authorities ought to pull their heads from where the sun don't shine and understand that social media services aren't the bad guy. Twitter won't make a player corrupt. Heck, if a corrupt player wants to communicate with a bookie I suspect they'd have the brains to use a more discrete form of communication. I'll leave it Andy Roddick to sum things up.