Should ollie robinson be punished for historical tweets.
 

The cricketer who made some dodgy tweets as a teenager has been banned from international cricket.

Fair?

yes, he is representing a country and that requires certain standards.

If he was a teenager when they were made and has clearly done nothing similar since, I have more inclination to allow people to apologize and move on than if they've done it as an adult, however, I'd need to see the exact tweets as there's still a line. That line moves based on certain factors, but it always exists.

i think we can draw certain parallels to things like having a criminal record excludes you from taking on certain jobs.


It's not the end of his career, its just not appropriate for him to be representing a country

Having looked them up, the tweets are obviously not great and it's a little murky given that he was 18, technically an adult, but based on what he's had to say about it I think there's ample evidence that he's not that kid any more and has genuinely matured/is sorry. I think on balance that it is vitally important to let people grow and better themselves and reward them for doing so... otherwise, how do you get anyone to change?

That said I think it's important to point out that he's been suspended pending investigation, which is appropriate. He has not been kneejerk banned.

On the topic of "the line" again I'd go back to it being murky because he was 18. If he'd been 15 I'd feel differently. You cannot judge an adult on things they said at 15 - ludicrous.

nope he has had his punishment (well ECB blame aversion) and he should continue as normal. Everyone makes mistakes at 18 - he has learned a valuable lesson so lets move on.

and not pretend that the tweets were anything other than lads embarrassing banter

He typed some words on a screen a decade ago and since apologised ... Nah, no punishment needed.

Also, it's interesting how it's being framed as "the tweets came to light" ... That's a funny way of saying some psycho decided to trawl through a decade of tweets in order to pointlessly ruin someone's life.

To be fair this will always happen when someone's profile rises and anyone who doesn't check, check, and check again that their internet "past" is locked down tight is being reckless.

The other option that often works is for people to point out themselves that they have said or posted stupid **** in the past and regret it. Then no one cares, and no one bothers going back to check.

A friend of mine from school who now has a good career working with asylum seekers signed my yearbook with a highly questionable "joke" (we would have been 17). Blackmail fodder :joker:. But honestly, god knows what I wrote in other people's yearbooks. Mutually Assured Destruction I guess :umm2:.

….is it known how the tweets came to light now, then…?….

They were still on his public Twitter, someone just had to scroll back far enough. It will most likely have been the press tbh.

depends what kind of a twitter user he is. If he is like me, i have only posted 2 tweets since 2010, so it would be pretty easy for anyone

No.
At 18 you are still growing as a person.
God forbid if it became public what was said and done when I was 18.:blush:

My teenage internetting is quite well buried thankfully. One ancient forum that no longer exists even in archived form, a follow-up abandonned forum to that one where I managed to contact the admin a couple of years back and he agreed that it was best to delete the whole thing, password lock the web address, and burn and salt the earth :joker:.

I was also entirely anonymous on both with a username I haven't used since.

I honestly do have sympathy for people in these situations... I was never racist etc, but I was a very, very unhappy, angry and confused teenager and (much like now I guess, of course much more refined :hee: ) I didn't easily take **** from people... on a forum full of other unhappy, angry teenagers... so honestly some of the things I said to people at age 14 or 15 were absolutely god awful :shrug:.

Frankly I call bull**** on most people who claim they're happy with everything they said at 15. Isn't that sort of the point of the teenage years? To make horrendous errors and learn how to actually be a decent adult?

…I watched a little of Life Stories with Pier last night…it was Chris Eubanks …anyways, stuff about his earlier years that I hadn’t known during a time when he battled addictions ….he used a phrase of not being an adult then but later in his career he became a representative of his country in boxing…he ‘wasn’t that person anymore’ and it’s about the person you become…?….and I guess this would be a comparable thing….social media/tweets etc are a fairly new thing, aren’t they ….but they’re going to feature more and more in ‘histories and stories’ I think….so yeah, each one would have to be looked at on its own merit and that mindset now that had been shown…

Yes I agree, no other generation had to deal with their life and words being documented like this. Punishing adults for stuff they'd said as a teenager without allowing them to have grown up and regret and apologise is not a progressive way forward imo What's the incentive for people to learn and change if they're not allowed to move on from past mistakes?

…it would be different and have to be considered if the tweets had ‘come to light’ now because of a similar repeated mindset that he was currently showing….which is why I touched on that earlier, if we knew for sure how they’d become known now….but I guess yeah, they just did because these things do and will continue to for many people….young people can overcome a lot in their lives of their environments to try to change their futures…

Oh yes agree with that, obviously if they're still saying the same stuff that's a different story. People do seem to do massive searches on peoples social media these days though for no real reason

I honestly think I "just" dodged it by being part of the earliest net-teen generation where everyone was behind avatars and usernames (which I have kept up to this day :laugh: ). Everyone's just flapping about out there these days with their name and face all over everything!

Thung is no one is really punishing him or that bothered by the tweets

The ECB IS worried about getting the blame for them and the backlash and they are doing all they can to cover their arses

I agree with that too and even if it's relatively recent it's a bit dodgy. I remember someone in one of these scandals being all "I've CHANGED!!" but then when you looked... the tweets were 18 months old and he was something like 28 when they were made :think:.

Not that people CAN'T change in later life too, but in cases like that, I'm afraid it takes a little longer than 18 months to prove it!

Yeah, Twitter seems to be the main one that gets people into trouble. Awful platform though, I hope it dies at some point or the next generation decide to take back their privacy :laugh:

Yeah :laugh: like Ammi said earlier, probably each case should be looked at individually

Thus far GenZ seems very uninterested. Twitter is for Millenials and GenX and Facebook is for boomers, apparently :joker:.

Though there's always goddamned TikTok :umm2:.

I'm Gen X and I could never get into Twitter, i tried it out for a day but it wasn't for me :laugh:

in the old days he would have had a day in the stocks or a good flogging and then everyone could move on. Simpler times