Another instance of a social media post coming back to haunt someone years later – talk to your students!
We have written before about cases where teenagers posted inappropriate items on their social media and it came back to haunt them years later. We had another incident where this happened last week. Josh Allen, who was one of the top quarterbacks in last weeks NFL draft had some Twitter postings resurrected that he had posted when he was 15 years old. The posts quoted some things he had seen in a TV show and heard in some rap music lyrics and used inappropriate language. He thought they had been scrubbed, but 5 years later, as he was in line to be one of the top picks in the draft, they were uncovered and reported one day before the draft.
Here is a link to his apology and some of the offensive tweets – http://www.tmz.com/2018/04/26/josh-allen-apologizes-for-racist-tweets/
He came out and apologized and said he was young and dumb and didn’t mean what he had posted as a young teenager.
This is another teaching moment to let your students know they should not post anything offensive on their social media as many Colleges are now checking students social media accounts before offering letters of acceptance and many years later their future employers may also be checking long ago posts.
Josh Allen was ultimately drafted by the Buffalo Bills so it didn’t affect his draft status, but your students may not be so lucky so it is important to educate them about this subject and to think before they post.
Postscript – After writing this post I just saw another example that came up this week. One of MSNBC’s hosts, Joy Reid, made some posts more than 10 years ago that were anti-LBGT. After they were discovered and publicized, she made an apology which is linked here – https://www.theblaze.com/news/2018/04/28/msnbc-host-joy-reid-issues-apology-for-anti-lgbt-blog-posts-heres-how-people-responded
Yet another example of how something posted many years earlier can have ramifications and students should think before they post anything controversial.