Watch CBS News

LA City Workers Asked To Stop Streaming Olympics Online

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — City Hall employees are being asked to stop watching the Olympic Games online because the activity could cause the city's computer system to crash.

The Olympic games have apparently been scoring a lot of attention at City Hall.

According to the LA Times, the city's chief technology officer, Randi Levin, sent an email to thousands of employees Tuesday morning saying, "We are experiencing a high volume of traffic due to people watching the Olympics online. I respectfully request that you discontinue this as it is impacting city operations."

"It's going to slow down productivity," Kevin Haley a technology expert of Norton software told CBS2/KCAL9 reporter Suzie Suh.

It's unclear how exactly how many city computers were streaming the Olympics simultaneously, but technology experts say everything slows down when so many people are using that much data.

"Things that people are using their computers for that are work-related, they're probably unable to do those things in a fast or normal speed, so trying to get your email to come up probably takes forever," Haley said, adding that "it may cause the internal network to have trouble or malfunction.

Phone calls placed to Levin's office by CBS2 were not answered and the Los Angeles mayor's office declined to comment.

View CBS News In
CBS News App Open
Chrome Safari Continue
Be the first to know
Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting.