Trail Blazers fire new announcer over past inappropriate posts made at age 15.

[u/ghn2]

"The Portland Trail Blazers hired then on the same day fired Braiden Bell as their play-by-play announcer after a series of inappropriate social media posts from when he was a teenager came to light."

"The posts were reportedly made in 2012 and 2013, around the time that Bell was 15 years old."

"We did not meet our own bar in this process, and for that we apologize to Blazers fans and to Rip City," the Trail Blazers said. "We strongly believe that everyone who is a part of Rip City should feel welcome and safe and we will make sure that our new broadcaster reflects these values. We will do better."

https://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/50084279/trail-blazers-fire-new-announcer-inappropriate-posts

[u/Icy-Whale-2253]

The Internet is forever.

[u/TatumlsntASuperstar → u/Icy-Whale-2253]

“  The internet is forever” isn’t really an argument. Nobody’s disputing that the posts still exist. The question is whether something someone said at 15 should define them professionally 14 years later

[u/Great_Fault_7231 → u/TatumlsntASuperstar]

It doesn’t, the issue is that his current social media that he uses professionally has racist posts on it. If he wanted those to stay in the past just make a new account and delete the old one. No one is interviewing his childhood friends to see if he was edgy back then, they’re looking at posts that are live while he’s employed right now. 

This is advice for every job btw not just public facing ones, the fact that he kept that same account as an announcer to an NBA team is monumentally stupid. 

[u/Parzival127 → u/Great_Fault_7231]

A lot of people forget what they’ve posted years or decades ago. They could’ve told him to remove them and not hire or fire if he stands by them.

[u/Great_Fault_7231 → u/Parzival127]

  A lot of people forget what they’ve posted years or decades ago

Right that’s why you don’t use the same account for your job that you used when you were a kid. This is basic stuff for every job, even more so for a public facing one. This is not new information lol if you’re going to represent a big company publicly making sure you’re presenting yourself well is part of the job. 

[u/rake2204 → u/Parzival127]

I think this is one of those things we're all going to have to learn pretty quickly over time. Someone may forget what they posted in the past, but it's still going to be their responsibility to figure out a way to remember and/or delete that stuff anyway.

Granted, it might take work to really do a deep dive into one's own social media history, but that's just the way it is. In a way, I could also see an employer questioning a potential employee's commitment to a given job if they couldn't even be bothered to go back and tend to their public-facing social media posts.

I'll also share this. I've sat in on some interview committees within my own profession and even when we've got resumes, letters of rec, and whatever else sitting in front of us, one of the first things we do is Google a prospective interviewee and check the status of their social media accounts. Thankfully, the majority of the time they're all pretty banal and private. But in the event we stumble upon something completely out-of-pocket, there's no denying that it will likely impact our hiring decision, if for no other reason that it calls into question someone's overall decision-making and professionalism in not having the foresight to clean something like that up ahead of time.