I Am Free to Tweet
A trend is on the rise that disturbs me greatly. Social media censorship has existed for several years at the corporate level, and companies continue to struggle to define acceptable best practices. According to business marketing consultant Olivier Blanchard, very few companies are crafting effective, respectful policies, save IBM, whose Social Computing Guidelines offer a rare glimpse at a model that was developed for the people, by the people, and so has a far better chance of working. Blanchard’s post on Paranoia and Social Media states plainly why sports news organization ESPN and the United States Marine Corps utterly fail at addressing the problems they hope to correct by banning social media usage and declaring unfair edicts.
By contrast, British troops have been told to feel free to tweet, blog, use Facebook accounts and other platforms and like IBM, were simply instructed to be smart about it. These men are, after all, trained to kill people. Britain’s Ministry of Defence obviously realizes if they trust people to make life and death decisions involving taking another’s life, they can trust them to do the right thing on public forums.
Now sports organizations, from the NFL and its teams to college football authorities to most recently the US Open are issuing dictates, mandates, bans and threats to not only players, but their coaches, managers, family and friends regarding what they can say online at sites like Facebook or Twitter. It incenses me. I know not everyone sees this issue the way I do, but I view this as a severe violation of every human’s right to freedom of speech, which is recognized in the Bill of Rights as the First Amendment to the US constitution, and under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the ICCPR. From wikipedia, the most clear definition of this fundamental right:
Freedom of speech is the freedom to speak freely without censorship or limitation. The synonymous term freedom of expression is sometimes used to indicate not only freedom of verbal speech but any act of seeking, receiving and imparting information or ideas, regardless of the medium used. Freedom of speech and freedom of expression are closely related to, yet distinct from, the concept of freedom of thought. In practice, the right to freedom of speech is not absolute in any country and the right is commonly subject to limitations, such as on “hate speech”.
Freedom of speech today is understood as a multi-faceted right that includes not only the right to express, or disseminate, information and ideas, but three further distinct aspects:
- the right to seek information and ideas
- the right to receive information and ideas
- the right to impart information and ideas.
Americans have a long and ugly history of battling oppression in various forms: religion, race, creed, gender, sexual preferences, marital preferences, beliefs, equal opportunity, and now, in a silly and blatant attempt to control the uncontrollable, social media usage.
I’m fed up with these stories, mounting by the day. So small an effort that it may be, I have created a set of “Free To Tweet” and “Free to Speak” avatar graphics and since Twitter is my main platform, am sporting the Free to Tweet banner on my avatar. You can easily add them to your avatar using Avatarize if you wish, or download the images. If people like these and this little mission to speak out in protest about the rampant denial of people’s freedom of speech, I will make signage, posters and site graphics that can be used, as well as a Facebook page. People sometimes ask what I am passionate about, regarding social causes. This is it. This issue is just getting worse with time at this point in history, not better.
I applaud players like tennis star Andy Roddick and football player Chad Ochocinco who are speaking out about the bans, mandates and attempts at limiting their freedoms of expression by their employers. Some people think that it’s understandable if companies restrict expression by employees because it could hurt their brand. But guess what??? Absolutely NOWHERE in the US Constitution will you find an exception to the right of freedom of speech based on enforcing a (faux) great brand! Go ahead and look, I’ll wait: http://www.usconstitution.net
Satisfied that protecting your company’s best interests, even if it means gagging yourself and limiting your own rights, is not protected by any laws? As a player being fined large amounts of money for offending its NFL team, or having to read threatening notices when I am trying to focus on staying positive and winning my tennis matches, I would be feeling very negatively about my organization and its unlawful conduct right now.
As a fan, I am outraged. And I have a message for you, sports organizations, concert promoters and anyone attempting to tell me how to comport myself in public:
Just because I buy a ticket to your sporting event, you don’t own me. If you think you do, I will be HAPPY not to purchase a ticket, watch your event on TV, or give my money to you in any way. It is not your right to limit my self-expression and monitor my social media posts with my friends, family and the world at large. If you see someone using recording equipment to film a bootleg copy of something that cost you money to produce and that you have the rights to, then by all means feel free to toss them out on the curb and deny their entry into your event. But don’t even try to tell me not to post a Facebook update or send a tweet from my phone about how my favorite team or player is doing, or the fact that it’s raining and I am outside at a ball game. Don’t tell me I can’t use my phone to film a short clip of myself and my friends and put it on YouTube from an event where I am having a personal experience. YOU are in violation of MY human right to freedom of speech and expression when you do this. And I will not tolerate it.
Players and team members are stars who bring people to games. They line the pockets of the people who write their checks, it’s not the other way around. People get attached to other people, and sometimes, to a team, idea or cause. But it is almost always people-driven. That is why fans buy jerseys with their favorite player’s number on it. Rather than immature posturing, the San Diego Chargers missed an opportunity to let an employee know they heard him and address their crappy food problem. And yes, that player could have taken his grievance to internal managers, but maybe he did and no one listened. Or maybe he was just tired, hungry, and facing another crappy meal while being stuck at training camp away from his family and his typical way of eating. Organizations who think they are within their rights to punish or penalize someone using his right to freedom of speech need to WAKE UP.
Player frustration and rebellion, as expressed by Roddick and Ochocinco, who is going so far as to hold a contest wherein he will fly a fan to every game, to have them tweet for him during the game, is predictable psychology. When people are dominated with undue authority, chaos and anarchy ensue as they take matters into their own hands in an attempt to balance the unbalanced. Crack open a history book and you can see this pattern repeated around the globe, throughout the ages. I read a wonderful article just now about how people in China, being repressed and restricted beyond their International Human Rights are finding ways to send tweets via a chain of other services. Why are they doing this? Because China took away their rights to communicate to the rest of the world online and they’re basically saying “Screw you. We’re smart enough to figure out how to do it anyway.”
We have a frenzy of activity on social media platforms and in the marketing industry right now. From misinformation on how to achieve R.O.I. to where to promote your brand to how to use these services, our media, news and culture is consumed with questions, suggestions and rampant speculation about it. And as Olivier Blanchard pointed out in his post, paranoia and tons of bad decisions abound.
Welcome to the New World. You can’t control this, organizations scrambling in fear. Stop trying. Err on the side of being constructive, positive and social. Take advantage of opportunities to reach fans, listen to your employees and gather feedback about your brand. In short, stop being a controlling ass and join us. Or, persist in your dominating, unlawful attempts to repress the human spirit and prepare for protests like this one, Big Brother.
I AM FREE TO SPEAK.
I AM FREE TO TWEET.
I AM FREE TO EXPRESS MY VIEW.
As we all are.
» Download the avatar graphics here if you’d like to join me in this protest!
» Use Avatarize to add an overlay to your avatar easily (and remove it later also)
