Early Monday morning, it became apparent that the FSU Seminoles football team was exiting Twitter en masse. Players were deleting their Twitter accounts, although there was never an official reason why. Did the team decide to ban player accounts, in response to some recent pre-game clubhouse tweeting from players, or was this a decision made by the players?
↵In head coach Jimbo Fisher's press conference today, Fisher stated that it was not a team order for players to delete their accounts; instead, it was a decision made by the players themselves.
↵I'm not sure how I feel about all this. I'm glad this wasn't an edict that came down from above, as that would seem way too heavy-handed, but it's tough to know how to react without any details. Did the players decide to get away with Twitter because they felt it was causing too many distractions? Is this a reaction to their current losing stream?
↵I hope it's one of those reasons, and not that players were dealing with too many of the negative effects of social media. Let's face it: Twitter can suck for celebrities. Your every Tweet gets dissected by fans; it's all too easy to start a public-relations disaster with one emotional or ill-timed Tweet; and you can get harassed by anonymous internet trolls. And while college football players aren't full blown celebrities yet, they're still given a certain level of interest by the media, and treated as celebrities on their home campus. Do college teams educate their players on proper social media Do's and Don'ts? I doubt it, but they really should.
↵The Seminoles have hit a rough skid, losing three in a row and dropping out of the AP Top 25. I hope their players weren't getting harassed on Twitter, but then again, I wouldn't necessarily be surprised if that was the case.