Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Can twitter be banned?

Mike Leach, Texas Tech Football Coach, announced Monday that all players are being banned from twitter. The announcement came after a player tweeted about Leach's tardiness to a meeting after the Red Raider loss on Saturday.

In the past month there have been a lot of stories about the crack down of social media sites, one of the latest ESPN. Understandably companies are allowed to set rules that govern their employees, but are college football players, or athletes in general, employees of the school they attend?

Offensive linemen Brandon Carter tweeted: “This is not how I saw our season,” and has sense been suspended from the team for violating team rules. The tweet did not specifically use the Texas Tech name, anything against Coach Leach, or any of the players on the team. Carter was simply stating how he felt.

How can a social media site be banned from individuals using their freedom of expression on their own time?

Read the entire story: Texas Tech Football Players Banned From Twitter
More information on twitter bans: Twitter Crackdown Continues at ESPN

2 comments:

Ai Higashikawa said...

This is very interesting topic to talk about. In Japan, during the election time back in Aug, 2009, candidates' twittering was banned because it can violate the election law. They were also banned to post an entry for their own blog as well. Since I am not in Japan right now, it is difficult for me to get much detailed information on this, but I thought it interesting since I remember that the President Obama was a candidate, he updated his twitter or social networking sites with his BlackBerry. Does it mean Japan is just a closed-mind country? I hope not.

JBalsam87 said...

This is not the first time that social networking sites have cost people in the sports industry their job. I remember a year or so ago a story about an employee of the Eagles commented on his facebook page that he didn't like a trade that they had made (or something along those lines). The team found out about it and fired the guy. The guy was just a ticket salesman or something like that. They're pretty strict!