COLUMN: Using Twitter to dig up dirt on high-profile athletes a disturbing trend

It won’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows me or follows me on Twitter, but I love that particular social media platform.

I love Twitter for the information, the interaction and just the plain old silliness.

The rest of social media I can do without, but I’m more than likely going to be a Twitter lifer. I enjoy it that much.

All that being said, I've been cringing a lot lately at what Twitter has done to us as a society.

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It’s not just a platform for information and interaction; it’s also become a tool for shaming others — including some well-known athletes in recent months — over past bad behaviors and indiscretions.

The latest example, as you probably know, came over the weekend shortly after Oklahoma quarterback Kyler Murray won the Heisman Trophy. 

Why anyone was hunting for this is another story altogether, but it was discovered that Murray had directed some anti-gay slurs at friends on Twitter when he was 15.

Yes, 15!

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Not last week or last month when he was firmly entrenched in the national spotlight as a young adult and star athlete, but when he was 15 and presumably doing and saying some other dumb things that 15-year old kids tend to do.

To his credit, Murray apologized immediately, noting that his unfortunate use of the slurs at that time does not reflect the person he is today. 

To be clear, Murray used poor judgement and displayed youthful ignorance when he made those comments. But, again, he was 15, not fully formed as a person and not mature enough to understand the full weight of consequences that come with such social media behavior.

Had he made those comments now, at the age of 21, condemnation would have been justified and an apology from Murray not only appropriate but necessary.

But on the biggest night of his life, was it really necessary to dig that deeply into his past to find examples of bad behavior from the age of 15? How would those doing the digging like it if the tables were turned? Not much, I'm guessing.

I mean, heaven help us all if that’s the way we’re going to operate as a society now.

Which brings me back to Twitter. Since it relates to my job, I follow and am followed by many high school athletes.

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Occasionally I’ll see tweets from kids that make me wince a little, but for the most part I think they know how to conduct themselves appropriately on social media.

In many ways, they’re savvier and more sophisticated than us adults. We're not immune from making social media errors as well.

As the adults who cover young athletes, we must conduct ourselves appropriately as well. Which, to me, means not digging through Twitter accounts to find five-year old tweets that may contain damaging or embarrassing information unless there is a damn good reason to do so.

Kids have to do their part, too. If you’re thinking of tweeting something that you think might come back to bite you in the future, just don’t. It’s not worth it, even if you mean no harm. Especially if you mean no harm.

And, hopefully by the time you’re all adults, the unfortunate trend that made Kyler Murray its latest victim will be a thing of the past.