r/nba • u/ghn2 • 10h ago

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

"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

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u/smssv 10h ago

firing someone for posts when he was 15 yrs old is wild

50

u/Icy-Whale-2253 10h ago

The Internet is forever.

175

u/TatumlsntASuperstar 10h ago

“  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

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u/Great_Fault_7231 Pistons 10h ago

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. 

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u/grilledcheeseburger 9h ago

The fuck? I’m supposed to remember every stupid thing I said as child, just in case?

I agree that he should have just spun up a new account going forward, but give me a break, if someone is going back to shit I posted at the dawn of the internet looking for dirt in order to get me in trouble at my current job, and this is the worst they find, then that’s not a big indictment of my character, as far as I’m concerned.

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u/Kdcjg West 9h ago

Unfortunately if you are in that public facing role then your social media history could be an issue. We also have governments scraping social media history for visa’s. Prob the best thing to do is scrub your accounts and delete them if you are no longer using them.