Talk about ‘Freedom of Tweet’
So Today… I found out that there are rules on when athletes are allowed to open up their social media accounts and actually proceed to use them. A little controlling, but rules are rules. According to the NFL, “A player is in violation of league rules if he uses a social media platform within 90 minutes of kickoff or the standard postgame media time.” Well if this is the case, then the player should not be allowed to talk to the media either. If one of the reporters were to disclose information about the what the player said before or after the game on twitter, wouldn’t he be crossing boundaries? The NFL didn’t stop there to ensure their players don’t go discussing what they really feel on twitter. Just ask Antonio Cromatie from the San Diego Chargers. His tweet about how disgusting the food was that his club served him landed him a $2,500 fine by his organization. I think such outbursts should be watched. Antonio has a following of 21,000 followers and this could put a bad light on the Chargers organization. Question is, where do we draw the line to where athletes can express what they want without having to worry about getting hit with a thousand dollar fine? Twitter is about someone’s true personality and the actual player engaging with his audience (Fan base). I think there should be guidelines to what guys can say, but there should also be that freedom given to them to say things that their ‘freedom of tweet’ entails them to. The answer is simple. Don’t tweet about things that are going to put your team, the organization or the league in negative light, especially in the heat of the moment. Because you could be paying a lot of money for that 140-character message you tweeted about.
