I am a student at the University of Maine, and I am currently taking an introduction to mass communications class. In this class, we have learned a lot about media and ethical journalism.
I am writing to you to voice my concern about how journalists, media and the public are finding and using old social media posts of celebrities and members of the community against them. The most recent example in the news is Kevin Hart and his homophobic tweets from 2009-2011.
I am not here to dismiss what he said in those tweets; I strongly agree it was wrong of him to say what he did. However, my real concern about this is these tweets are almost 10 years old.
Another example is recent Heisman trophy winner Kyler Murray, who also made homophobic tweets in 2011 and 2012 when he was 14 and 15 years old. I am happy they have apologized for these tweets and think they should, but I have concern over the younger generation and even my generation and our online activity.
A lot of younger people now have Snapchat, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, YouTube, etc. and are inevitably going to post something they will regret in the future when they are older, and it may affect their future. I’m lucky that sites I used when I was growing up, such as MSN and MySpace, have all but disappeared but I do have Facebook and Twitter and used them at a young age.
As a public, we need to realize that social media has allowed people to say what they are thinking at the moment, which has proved to no always be a good thing. We don’t know the context behind what is being said or the environment that person has grown up in.
Personally, I can say that 10 years ago I was a completely different person, five years ago I was a different person and I’m sure that 10 years from now I will be a different person. My ideas, taste, personality, hobby are all different with experience.
I’m not saying people should not be held accountable for what they said online now and in the past. They should have to apologize and address the posts they make. But is it ethical for us to publicly crucify someone for something they posted on social media when they were much younger? Hart and Murray said these things when they were much younger. They both say they do not stand by what they said at that time in their lives. If we believe as a society that people change with time, then why is it these old tweets are being used against people in the now?
Is it ethical for a journalist to report on such things and shame these people as if they said it yesterday and call for the end of their careers? I think no. At some point, there need to be protections for people’s online posts so people don’t lose job opportunities because of a social media post from when they were much younger.
Byron Winslow of Veazie is a student at the University of Maine.