Dan Orlovsky addresses social media approach as ESPN employee

Two weeks after deleting his response to the Olympic boxing controversy featuring Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, Dan Orlovsky addressed his social media approach.

As disingenuous takes misidentifying Khelif’s gender spread across social media earlier this month, Orlovsky chimed in with a post that read “protect our daughters.” Orlovsky’s post came shortly after Pat McAfee amplified the controversy surrounding Khelif in a lengthy rant, where he referenced transgender athletes and claimed the women’s boxer was “deemed a male.”

But shortly after Orlovsky posted “protect our daughters” as the social media noise around the Olympic boxing controversy grew louder, the ESPN NFL analyst deleted the message. This week, Orlovsky spoke to Barrett Media’s Derek Futterman and addressed the approach he attempts to maintain toward social media while working for ESPN.

“When you’re an employee of a big company, your social media page doesn’t just get to be your social media page,” Orlovsky said. “That’s a fantasy, so you have to represent yourself and the company that you work for in the proper way.”

Orlovsky appears to be taking the complete opposite approach from his ESPN colleague Kirk Herbstreit on the issue. In the wake of the Olympic boxing controversy, Herbstreit was asked, “Do men belong in women’s sports?” by a social media follower. Despite the question being a false framing of transgender athletes, Herbstreit responded without much nuance saying, “Of course not.” Earlier this week, Herbstreit waded further into the transgender athlete culture war, telling OutKick he doesn’t really “give a sh*t” about backlash or upsetting people.

ESPN implemented a “stick to sports” mandate in 2018 that it attempts to maintain. And 99 percent of the time it does. But for that remaining one percent, it seems to be a case-by-case basis. Stephen A. Smith is granted more leeway than Kirk Herbstreit, who might be granted more leeway than Dan Orlovsky. Former ESPN employee Jemele Hill was suspended for violating the company’s social media guidelines in 2017, so that precedent was set. But Orlovsky aside, it hasn’t stopped ESPN employees from using their personal social media accounts to express personal views.

Update: The original headline has been updated after an ESPN spokesperson clarified Orlovsky was not directly asked about deleting his tweet and was commenting on general social media use.

[Barrett Media]