Athletes & Twitter: The debate

http://www.tsn.ca/community/story/?id=328896

TSN has an article up allowing viewers to have their say in the debate: Should Athletes (or celebrities in general for that matter) be able to say whatever they want on their personal Twitter account?

I saw on Twitter that Coyotes player Paul Bissonette had his account shut down by his agent, whether or not directly as a result of this specific Tweet: "sorry communist. back to the soviet", in reference to Kovalchuk's rejected contract.

I say that these athletes should be able to say whatever they want as long as they are willing to face the consequences of saying the wrong thing. If they say something that gets them, or their team in trouble, let the appropriate parties deal with it internally.

And if they say something that causes a stir with a community or their fans, like Bosh asking followers if he should stay (in Toronto) or not, then they will have to face the wrath of the people.

So, I say let them do what they want as long as they are willing to deal with the repercussions. Some people need to use discretion and realize the impact and affect they have as a celebrity.

What do you think?

I tend to agree with you...

I don't think the teams should/would publicly force someone to close their tweets, but I think that's part of an Agent's job. They're there to help their clients' image and if I were Paul and I clearly stepped out of line, I would hope my agent would pull the plug to limit the firestorm coming my way.

Yeah, what "BizNasty" said was offensive/racist. He's also had t-shirts made with "R.I.P. twitter.com/BizNasty" on it as a way for fans to protest the forced closing of his account.

It's the same thing with your average joe. If you go on Facebook or Twitter on your own time and say something derogatory or offensive about your employer, workplace or co-workers, and get caught, you will be punished. Aside from prohibiting employees to access Twitter on work time, they have no right to stop someone from having an account, obviously it is the users decision what they use it for.

And most people will be very private with their FB or Twitter accounts, especially if you are in a career where you are under scrutiny. If you are a teacher, I don't think you want to allow students to see pictures of your partying on your facebook profile.

These are grown (and maybe even mature) men. They are free to speak their mind; as idiotic as it might be. I say let them speak it and watch them (or their agent) try to squirm out of trouble; who knows? it might even be fun!!!

Yes they should use twitter, and I find nothing wrong with what Biz Nasty said. It was hilarious at the time and not racist at all...much better than guys like Erik Johnson or Cam Janssen who tweet "Just worked out, now grabbing dinner" or something like that.

I agree with you Dash when you say they should face the consequences of what they tweet. I believe Biz Nasty would have faced the consequences, but his agent forced him to take it down I believe.