Depending on where you grew up and what baseball team you grew up rooting for, you could have very different opinions on Curt Schilling.
If you grew up in New York or root for the New York Yankees, odds are you’re not too fond of him. He was on the Diamondback team that broke your heart in the 2001 World Series, and he was a hated Red Sox player when he donned the infamous bloody sock that, according to you, may or may not have been a hoax.
But, no matter what your opinion on Curt Schilling is, it’s hard not to be on his side when he protects his daughter from vulgar and inappropriate Twitter users.
It’s becoming increasingly evident that social media has become a forum for those, who normally wouldn’t have the courage to voice their opinions.
This can obviously lead to positive things, but in this instance that is certainly not the case.
Curt Schilling admits that when he tweeted that his daughter would be attending Salve Regina College in Rhode Island next year to play softball, he expected tweets that said people couldn’t wait until she got there so they could date her. While not exactly what a father wants to read, those tweets were nothing compared to the ones Schilling ended up reading.
Many Twitter users ended up sending increasingly vulgar and sexually threatening messages. Often when this happens on social media, threatening individuals have the luxury of being behind a screen when they do so, never facing consequences for their actions.
That’s why so many people are applauding what Schilling did next. Schilling used his fame to broadcast the identities of the men who sent the threatening messages, including several student athletes.
As a result, many of these Twitter users have either been suspended from their schools or fired from their jobs.
This is an extreme departure from the way anonymous attacks over social media usually go.
You can be sure none of the men sending the vulgar messages Schilling’s way thought they would face any repercussions. They’re neither the first nor the last who will send terrible things over the Internet. I’m sure all of us can admit to at times feeling a bit overconfident when online.
But, even on the Internet there’s a line that should never be crossed. On one hand, you can argue that the punishment ends up being harsh, since these repercussions probably would not have happened had the tweets been sent to someone without the national reach of Schilling.
However, you could counter that by saying that this is the problem. People get away with these kinds of actions too often on the Internet, so we should applaud Schilling who is somebody who is able to do something about it.
Yes, the punishments are harsh, but it’s an instance where the punishments fit the crime.
