Is Red Bull up to its renegade ways again? Has Verizon climbed on its back for the ride? The power of Twitter is in play again as these two companies – who are not Olympic sponsors – have been posting congratulatory tweets to U.S. Olympic athletes like Shaun White, Lindsey Vonn and Shani Davis.

International Olympic Committee rules say only official sponsors can associate themselves with the games or with the athletes during the events.  This “ambush behavior” hurts the athletes, a U.S. Olympic official told The Wall Street Journal, before making them delete the incriminating tweets.

But do tweets and other social media communiques – arguably, a form of editorial from brands wishing to remain topical to its followers – really constitute ambush marketing? Or is this yet another example of the heavy-handed IOC denying non-sponsors their right to talk about the Games. And, more to the point, what harm could this possibly bring to the Olympics if Red Bull is talking up an event sponsored by a rival?

In the past, ambush marketing incidents involved non-sponsors prominently plugging its brand at or around Olympic venues as Nike did in Barcelona in 1992. Surely, those were more flagrant than simply Tweeting a few encouraging words about athletes.

The IOC has a track record for shortsightedness when it comes to new media technologies. In 1956, then IOC President Avery Brundage famously declared the telly would be the ruin of the sport. Nearly 60 years ago, he said “we in the IOC have done well without TV for 60 years and will do so certainly for the next 60 years too.”How’d that prediction work out? Broadcaster NBC has paid billions for exclusive broadcast rights in the U.S., bankrolling the event for the past two decades.

To be sure, the IOC’s track record is usually to censor first, then allow new technologies to play their part in boosting the visibility of the Games. It should tread lightly with Red Bull which has long supported “extreme” athletes in a way few companies have.

A look at this video and you might just hear the IOC chanting “Go Red Bull, Go…”