By now you know that the New York Giants and the New England Patriots will play each other in the Super Bowl I’m sure you also know that San Francisco 49er player Kyle Williams made two critical mistakes on punt returns that played a major role in the 49er’s loss to New York.
You just knew Williams was in for a long couple of days. 49er fans were going to be angry at Williams. You knew that would happen, but then here is the part when sports and social media go wrong.
Kyle Williams started receiving death threats on twitter. The problem with this is that years ago hate towards a player was confined to your local bar, now with social media a fan’s hate is public. Look I understand. I’m as passionate a sport’s fan as you’ll find, but no athlete deserves this kind despicable treatment.
With social media news travels fast and it travels everywhere. Do some of these so-called fans realize players have families and friends that will see this?
I think social media is fantastic way to communicate with fellow fans, get insight into your favorite players, and sometimes even pass a message back and forth from one of those stars. As a forum to harass and threaten players, come on small portion of 49er fans, it was tough enough on the 2nd year player.
I give credit to William’s teammates and the 49er fans that came to his defense following the game. I’ve never been a particularly big San Francisco fan, but the 49er players showed a lot class in standing up for Williams.
Kyle Williams has a twitter account @KyleWilliams_10 where you can thankfully see many tweets of encouragement and support now rather than the garbage that was spewed there before.
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