Jose Canseco Tweets Personal Info & More About Woman Who Accused Him Of Sexual Assault:
Why Is Twitter Letting Jose Canseco Set Another Example of Rape Victim Shame?
Jose Canseco spent Wednesday tweeting and deleting the personal information of a woman — including her name, telephone number, and work address — at the center of an incident in which the former baseball player was apparently questioned. "He's being investigated for an alleged sexual assault, and that's it," a Las Vegas police sergeant says. So why isn't Twitter doing anything about it?
In a year when young victims of sexual assault have been shamed on social media by young people siding with accused athletes from Torrington to Steubenville, here is a six-time All-Star (albeit a very strange and estranged one), live-tweeting his self-defense to more than 510,000 Twitter followers and calling into question the judgment of a woman who appears to have accused him of a crime. Indeed, after he got off a flight to Fort Worth this evening, Canseco was up to it again.
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It's not crazy to think Canseco opened up an avenue of harassment. Canseco gets wildly personal on Twitter as it is, tweeting email addresses of his manager while seeking publicity. Mind you, the investigation is still ongoing. But outings like this, before any case can get underway and with the track record of professional athletes and women on social media, could have a chilling effect on the alleged victim and future victims. The special prosecutor in the Steubenville case actually said that the national attention paid to Jane Doe harmed the case when it came to witnesses — and put stress on the young girl.
Twitter loves its free speech. And people hate when Twitter even thinks about censorship. And in a sense, that free speech principle allows us to make fun of Justin Bieber or Ryan Seacrest or our sad dinners in 140 characters. It's also what allows Jose Canseco to be a jerk. We'll let you know if we hear back from Twitter.
Tweets and more: http://m.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/05/jose-canseco-twitter-rape-victim/65515/
Jackass!
= new reply since forum marked as read
Just saying. 
