Baltimore Ravens Meet Streisand Effect After Trying To Play 'Hide The Tweet'

from the blaming-the-victim dept

If you're not a sports fan, you probably have no idea who the hell Ray Rice is. If you are a sports fan, you may know that he was recently banned from playing in the NFL. The background on this is quick. Months ago, TMZ released a video from an Atlantic City casino showing Rice dragging his then-fiance out of an elevator. It was clear she was out cold. It was also acknowledged by Rice that they had had an altercation, though specifics weren't discussed. All the public knew was what they saw in the video and that Rice had agreed to enter into a treatment program to avoid prosecution, since his then-fiance refused to press charges, and indeed married Rice weeks later.

Once the public got wind of all this, Rice and his wife held a press conference. The Baltimore Ravens, the NFL team for whom Rice plays football, for reasons unfathomable to this writer, decided to live-tweet the press conference, including retweeting statements by Rice's wife that made many people sick to their stomach.

It's important to understand the context in which the Ravens were putting these tweets out. In the wake of the video of Rice dragging his fiance out of an elevator, and in conjunction with live-tweeting this press conference, the team, its executives, and its head coach were all rushing to the defense of Ray Rice. Even after the NFL suspended Rice a laughably lenient two games out of the season for the incident, the Ravens' website was full of glowing reports about their running back, their head coach was talking about how Rice is a "heck of a guy" and the lenient suspension was a good lesson for children, and NFL broadcast partners were asking Rice what his wife's words of encouragement were for him in a pre-season game. It's in that context that the tweet above was put out, appearing to confirm that the woman who was knocked out cold had it coming to her. Then this video was released earlier this week.

That's Ray Rice one-shot knocking his then-fiance out from inside the elevator. And just like that, the Baltimore Ravens decided it was time to delete many of their tweets supporting Rice, including the one above that referenced Janay Rice doing what way too many women do in domestic violence incidents: blame themselves. For some reason, whoever is running social media and/or PR for the Ravens apparently doesn't understand the Streisand Effect, because deleting those tweets now has those same tweets back in the news today, now that the NFL has upped Rice's suspension to indefinite. Instead of admitting any mistakes, or acknowledging any regrets, the team attempted to erase their misdeeds from the internet.

Sorry, guys, the internet doesn't work like that. Enjoy all that terrible publicity you generated for yourselves! Next time maybe just don't be so quick to try to blame the victim of a violent crime.

Filed Under: domestic abuse, domestic violence, ray rice, tweets
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