You may have heard recently that comedian and actor Kevin Hart felt the need to withdraw from his position as host of the upcoming Oscar awards, and as of December 12th, there has yet to be a replacement named. This came in wake of tweets from 2010 that were deemed homophobic. As these posts gained traction, and the twitter mob grew larger, Hart promptly apologized and stepped down from the awards. It is not uncommon for comedians to tow the line when it comes to offending, and sometimes bad jokes are told, however, this should not bar someone from participating in the once in a lifetime opportunity that is hosting the Oscars. This has been a rising trend recently, seeing many prominent celebrities or athletes release apologetic statements regarding old posts. Unfortunately, if left unchecked, this trend could have negative societal ramifications.

As the college football season comes to a close, the heralded Heisman award is given to an NCAA athlete that stands out above the rest. This years winner was Kyler Murray of University of Oklahoma, who delivered an emotional speech on dedication and hard work, thanking those involved in helping him arrive at his dream, until the social media mob tried to take it away from him. Just as with Kevin Hart, old tweets surfaced using what was deemed homophobic language. Homophobia has no place in the public eye, and deserves to be dealt with accordingly, however, these tweets came from a 14 year old Murray, barely a young man. Like Hart, Murray quickly released a public apology for the tweets and removed them from his profile and, thankfully, kept the award, but not before having his dream tainted my meaningless accusations.

https://people.com/sports/heisman-trophy-winner-kyler-murray-apologizes-old-homophobic-tweets/

While rooting out bigotry remains an important part of society, resulting to mob rule and using social media to apply pressure to public figures only serves to hurt us rather than help us. In both previously mentioned instances, the person at hand was not actually homophobic and deeply regretted saying what they did, but the damage to their reputations had already been done. In the eight years it has been since Kevin Hart's tweets and seven since Kyler Murray's, both have changed significantly and have learned not to say or believe the things they were chastised for, but were still chastised nonetheless. If we do not allow people to learn from their mistakes and to better themselves without risking their reputation and career, these bigoted ideas will only fester. It is crucial to allow free expression and personal freedom to change, otherwise we may only provide a catalyst for the very ideas we seek to terminate.