Editorial: Mendenhall’s Twitter fumbles don’t merit social media ban

Sometimes, especially on social-networking sites, the temptation to broadcast impromptu… Sometimes, especially on social-networking sites, the temptation to broadcast impromptu observations can be overpowering — even if a harsh backlash is all but ensured.

Although websites like Twitter and Facebook are invaluable when it comes to connecting with friends and sharing information, they’ve also facilitated more than a few public relations headaches for professional sports teams.

As football fans are no doubt aware, Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall took to Twitter on May 2 to protest the revelry immediately following Osama bin Laden’s death. “It’s amazing how people can HATE a man they have never even heard speak,” he wrote, adding in a subsequent tweet, “I believe in God. I believe we’re ALL his children. And I believe HE is the ONE and ONLY judge.”

More incendiary, perhaps, was the post he deleted: “We’ll never know what really happened,” he said in reference to Sept. 11. “I just have a hard time believing a plane could take a skyscraper down demolition style.”

Unsurprisingly, Mendenhall’s comments drew the ire of more than a few Steelers fans, as well as from the team’s president, Art Rooney II, who said in a statement Tuesday that he found it “hard to explain or even comprehend what [Mendenhall] meant with his recent Twitter comments.” Two days later, in an equally predictable move, the sports apparel company Champion severed the athlete’s corporate sponsorship.

One proposition, however — set forth by Beaver County Times columnist Mark Madden and dissected in a subsequent USA Today article — caught us off-guard: Madden says that the Steelers should, among other things, “[b]ar players from social networking. No Twitter, no Facebook, nothing of the sort. No tangible good can come from it.”

For avid Internet users like ourselves, this is a startling claim. A well-managed, tactful online presence can have irrefutably positive effects. As USA Today notes, Steelers receiver Hines Ward maintains a thriving Facebook fan page, in which he posts frequent, good-natured statuses on subjects ranging from Mother’s Day to “Dancing With the Stars.” Often, more than 1,000 fans will respond with comments and “likes.”

But more importantly, banning athletes from Facebook and Twitter would not preclude embarrassing incidents. Even if the Steelers were to retreat from the Internet, their ability to make provocative comments at, say, a press conference would hardly be diminished. Limiting athletes’ online engagement will not fundamentally temper their propensity to be outspoken.

Ultimately, social media is what people make of it: a chance for expanding personal appeal or an unrivaled opportunity for self-destruction. Although athletes must understand that their actions online as well as in person will have consequences — in this case, lost corporate sponsorship and the wrath of many blue-blooded Pittsburghers — they should not be subject to a limitation of freedoms because of a few unseemly incidents. The possibilities these mediums afford — connecting with friends as well as celebrities — far outweigh their negative side effects.

In any case, Mendenhall can in other ways be seen as a positive example: During the 2010 season, the running back logged 1,273 yards and scored 13 touchdowns. However tenuous his grasp of social media is, the man knows how to handle a football.