Sports People Getting Fired on Facebook

In the past day or two there has been a substantial number of reports about individuals that posted tasteless information on Facebook and as a result were fired. Caitlin Davis, an 18-year-old New York Patriots cheerleader, was fired from her job following the posting of an offensive photo which involved her posing in front of her friend who had phallic drawings and swastikas written on his face while passed out. It was apparently done all in good fun but once her friend posted the photos on Facebook, the photos were spread around the web and Caitlin was fired. The second person to suffer from tasteless information posted on Facebook was Buck Burnette, center for the University of Texas football team. He posted the offensive statement "all the hunters gather up, we have a @%#@er in the whitehouse". While I haven't found an article that says he was definitely kicked off the team, I did find the following apology that he posted: Clearly I have made a mistake and apologized for it and will pay for it. I received it as a text message from an acquaintance and immaturely put it up on facebook in the light of the election. Im not racist and apologize for offending you. I grew up on a ranch in a small town where that was a real thing and I need to grow up. I sincerely am sorry for being ignorant in thinking that it would be ok to write that publicly and apologize to you in particular. I have to be more mature than to put the reputation of my team at stake and to spread that kind of hate which I dont even believe in. Once again, I sincerely apologize. My guess is that he's off the team. Rather than analyzing what the end result of the actions were, I'd rather focus on the fact that people are clearly not aware of privacy settings on Facebook. While speaking at Web 2.0 Summit today, John Battelle asked Mark Zuckerberg about the people being fired due to their Facebook activity. Mark Zuckerberg simply said "Well the privacy settings are there." Last week I posted about the Virgin crew that was fired due to their activity on Facebook. I also said that we'll most likely see this trend continue. It only took a week before a few more were published and my guess is that we'll see this continue. I think the key takeaway is to make yourself familiar with the privacy settings on Facebook and to be careful about what you post.

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Sports People Getting Fired on Facebook

Nick O'Neill

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Nick O'Neill