Penick's Take
PENICK: With UFC's Embrace of Social Media, Fighter Responsibility is Paramount
May 13, 2012 - 8:45:44 PM PENICK: With UFC's Embrace of Social Media, Fighter Responsibility is Paramount

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

The UFC has embraced social media like no other major sports entity. Instead of fining and restricting the use of sites such as Facebook and Twitter by their athletes, they've actively encouraged their fighters to interact with fans and fellow fighters, even setting up a bonus program for Twitter.

However, that leads to some inherent problems with fighters having an open line to post stream of consciousness statements at random. Whether that's political opinions, jokes, or everyday random musings, there's little to stop anyone from saying just about anything.

Now, most individuals have a very different sense of humor in the presence of close friends than they do in a more public or professional setting, but Twitter oftentimes becomes an outlet to let that sense of humor out on a wide scale. For professional comedians that's a great thing, as they can use 140 characters to deliver one-liners and quick jokes at random. However, for working folk - especially professional athletes - it's an opening to get them into a lot of trouble.

With almost any job, if your employer sees you write something highly inappropriate on Twitter or Facebook, it very well could lead to disciplinary action. For most pro sports, that is also the case, with fines laid out to many athletes over inappropriate comments made on the social networking site.

Part of the UFC's problem in this area is they've had no clear avenue of what's acceptable and unacceptable from their fighters. Miguel Torres remains the only fighter to have lost his spot on the roster from something he wrote on Twitter, yet the UFC sent mixed signals when they brought him back just a few months later.

That's why athletes themselves need to be very conscious of what they're writing and how their statements can be construed. That goes doubly so for a fighter like Torres who has already had disciplinary action laid against him. Yet, in the late hours of Friday night, Torres posted on Twitter this comment: "They should never say stop, no, and don't. What you should hear is no don't stop."

It may be a mostly harmless comment in and of itself, and without any context indeed it can be construed in many ways. But that right there is a problem, because many can and did react to the comment as if it was another joke about rape - the exact thing that got him released last fall. It may have been a completely benign throwaway comment, meant with no malice whatsoever, but given the uproar that came last fall, it's something that should have been seen as a potentially problematic comment.

As with the "joke" posted in the fall, some have pointed out that this comment was a quote from a comedy, this one from the 2001 movie "How High." There isn't anything wrong with quoting lines you think are funny and sharing it with others. However, much like with the joke last year, it was presented as is, with no context to frame it in a positive light for Torres. There were no quotes around the comment, no reference to the fact that he took it from a movie and reposted it. That lack of distinction did lead to a negative online reaction given his recent history, and it's something that could have easily been avoided.

The UFC is continuing to battle an image problem in many places as they try to get the sport legalized worldwide, and one of the issues continues to be a lack of accountability for fighters making public comments like this. This particular Tweet is far from the most egregious thing written by a fighter on Twitter, but someone in Torres' position, given what he's already experienced firsthand, needs to understand that some things shouldn't be posted on such a public forum.

Torres is not the only fighter or athlete to have an issue on this front, and this isn't meant to harp on him. But with the UFC facing more scrutiny over the comments made by their athletes in public, they're looking to crack down on more noticeable examples of inappropriate commentary. They can only do so much on their end, and it is the responsibility of fighters to make sure they present themselves and the UFC in a more positive light in public as well. It's something that has to be addressed more thoroughly, and everyone from the top down needs to have an understanding of what is and isn't acceptable so things like this can be avoided.

This also isn't some call to restrict the speech of anyone on Twitter. Fighters are free to say absolutely anything they want to say at any time, but they're not free from the consequences of any statements that cross the line in the eyes of the UFC. There's more focus on this subject than in the past because of the rash of incidences that have popped up over the last couple of years, and every fighter needs to understand that they can and likely will be held accountable for their public statements eventually.