Ray Rice Case Shows Perils of Justice by Social Media

Ray Rice isn’t the first professional athlete who has gotten into a domestic occurrence with their spouse in a public place.

Not that I support domestic violence by any means, but why is Rice the first player to lose his entire career over this?

And I can only come to one conclusion. And that conclusion is the effects of social media.

We are living in a time where technology is our “go to guy.” It is our library, GPS, and bank accounts. It is our connection to the world through E-mail, Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.

And all of this is easily accessible with our phones, and in today’s society, everyone has a phone.

As a result, when you have things such as the elevator tape that are very accessible to people, people are going to watch. And when they watch it they form an opinion about it.

Clearly domestic violence is not right. Violence on any level is wrong. So it is clear to see what type of reactions would be expected from a situation such as this one, especially considering the emotional reaction the tape caused.

The more viral it went, the more masses of people started to form opinions about it, and the more interest groups started to share their stories of similar problems. The more widespread it became; the more negative energy came with it.

And before you knew it, without notice Ray Rice and anything affiliated with him was caught in a media firestorm. A firestorm that forced the Baltimore Ravens and NFL to make ethical decisions based on how the public feels. Which led to him being fired.

But would Ray Rice be without a job had his elevator tape not gone viral? That’s the question I offer. And my guess is no.

There are some cases where social media is very necessary, and helpful to you all. For instance, the injustice that is being cased by all these different police departments.

However, social media’s influence on this situation is bad. It is not going to solve the problems that Ray Rice has in his marriage or that of any other athlete.

If anything, it will make them stay mindful of how to conduct themselves in public. That doesn’t solve the problem, because they can act any way they want when they know no one is watching.

The only thing that social media helped do in this particular case is help end a man’s career based on a chain-reaction of negative reactions of domestic violence.