by Jake Adams
One of Hugh Freeze's more endearing qualities is his willingness to engage fans on Twitter. Unfortunately, there are people from rival schools who use Freeze's presence on the social network as a way to direct unfounded accusations at the coach under the cover of bogus account names. Some people will do anything for attention, including creating a fake Twitter account designed for making inflammatory remarks and defamatory NCAA violation accusations toward a coach who is actually one of the few who is kind enough to converse with his fans on Twitter. It's happened more than once this year. It happened again yesterday, and it'll probably happen again soon.
Yesterday this low-life went on a tirade of NCAA violation accusations, some of which were directed directly at Freeze. Freeze responded, and in so doing we all got to see exactly what this "dude" was saying. Having fun with a rivalry is one thing, but what this guy did goes WAY too far. This is "the guy" you hear about who is so eaten up with recruiting that he absolutely loses his mind when his school doesn't get the key recruit he's been foaming at the mouth over for 11 months. Unfortunately, "this guy" went off the ledge. It's amazing what one Egg Bowl loss will do to some people.
It's a serious thing to accuse an SEC football coach of NCAA violations. Very serious. Coaches lose their jobs over such. With the salaries that these coaches make millions of dollars are at stake. As a lawyer, if Freeze asked me, I would advise him to at least consider obtaining a subpoena in order to get this Twitter user's identity and then strongly consider filing suit against him for defamation.
Defamation is publication of a 1) A false and defamatory statement about the plaintiff (Freeze); 2) to a third party (the dude's 669 Twitter followers); 3) fault amounting to at least negligence on the part of the publisher (he had no idea what the the truth really is before tweeting his garbage and didn't bother to check); and 4) actionability of the statement irrespective of special harm or the existence of special harm caused by the publication (in other words, damages, of which Freeze would have much given how a coach's reputation for integrity in recruiting is worth many years worth of million dollar salary). Since Freeze is a public figure, malice is also a requirement, but I don't think it would take much looking into this guy's background to figure out he doesn't like Ole Miss and its coach. And yes, Twitter does count as "publication". There's a lawsuit here if Freeze is interested in pursuing it.
Of course we all know Freeze probably won't waste his time on this guy, and he probably shouldn't. Sometimes it's better to leave folks like this guy to their own devices. They eventually take care of themselves.
Fortunately, Twitter has ways to protect users like Freeze, and you and me, from abusive content. It's called the "report for spam" feature. I researched it a little bit this morning and discovered that if enough users report a user who is posting abusive and defamatory content for spam Twitter can and will suspend that user's account.
At the very least this account is worthy of suspension by Twitter for abusive content. Click the link and read it for yourself. If you agree with me report him. Directly next to the follow button there's a little person with an arrow. Click on it and hit "report for spam". Do your part to clean up Twitter.
