No justice for Adler in court of social media
A commentator’s career was ruined when a mob of Twitter users misunderstood a remark, writes Daniel Schofield
‘They threw me out to the wolves and, essentially, labelled me a racist. They killed me’
The most terrifying book I have read in recent years is not a Stephen King tome but a title called So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed. Author Jon Ronson meets mostly ordinary people whose lives have been turned upside down after being tried and sentenced in the court of social media, a new unhinged form of citizens’ justice.
Generally his subjects have done something inappropriate, an ill-judged tweet or Facebook post, but the collective outrage to those transgressions swells to grotesque, frenzied levels. What makes his examples so disturbing is how easily the mistakes were made and the often devastating consequences.
Sometimes you do not even need to do something wrong to be set upon by the mob. Doug Adler was a tennis commentator for ESPN. In January, he was covering Venus Williams’s match in the Australian Open against Stefanie Voegele. Describing Williams’s play, Adler made his now fateful comment: “Venus is all over her. And you’ll see Venus move in and put the guerrilla effect on, charging.”
Nothing controversial in that you might think. But certain listeners replaced the word “guerrilla” in their heads with “gorilla”, which has a different context as Williams is African-american. Ben Rothenberg, a reporter for the New York Times, was among the first to highlight the perceived racism, tweeting: “This is some appalling stuff. Horrifying that the Williams sisters remain subjected to it still in 2017.#Ausopen.”
Soon many others joined with proverbial pitchfork in hand before the story was picked up by the press. A day later, Adler was made to apologise by ESPN. Still the controversy would not die and so he was fired. He is now suing the organisation and has been giving his side of the story this week. The “guerrilla effect” was referring to a phrase that has been used since a 1995 Nike advert featuring Pete Sampras and Andre Agassi called Guerrilla Tennis.
“It was nothing to do with an animal,” Adler told a television interviewer. “Everything to do with tactics, strategy, how to win the point.” At first, Adler tried responding to every tweet labelling him a racist for 20 hours a day, but that was like trying to catch every raindrop in a storm. He claims he suffered a heart attack as a result of stress.
“They threw me out to the wolves and basically, essentially labelled me a racist. They killed me,” Adler said. “They made me unemployable. They ended my career. They killed my reputation, my good name.”
A career ruined, all on the basis of a homophone. Never mind that Rothenberg and others never sought to check with Adler directly what he meant. Far better to judge first and be in possession of the facts later. All it takes, in many cases, is for a single cry of “racist” on social media for that accusation to be accepted as the truth. Benefit of the doubt does not exist in the Twittersphere. Google will now forever list Adler next to the word racism.
This is not another “political correctness gone mad” diatribe. I think political correctness has been a force for good in British society and sport. We do behave much better now.
There is still a long way to go. Racists as well as misogynists have a far more damaging impact on social media than the righteous brigade. As a white British male, I do not have the right to tell an African-american woman how or what she can be offended by.
But when asked about Adler’s comments, Williams’s response was pointed. “I pay attention and address situations that are noteworthy,” she said. “That’s been my past record, clearly.”
Make of that what you will.