Chinese Basketball Association bans American player for life for using Instagram

Most Chinese people neither have access to Instagram nor understand what "cakes" are. But there are still experienced Internet users -- some of which are fans and sports reporters -- who do have access to Instagram and know how to search for the meaning of "cake" through urban dictionary. Some of them felt offended and forwarded the screenshot to Chinese social media with Chinese translations of his words. The information spreaded on Internet and many Chinese basketball fans -- both male and female -- saw it and felt offended as well. To avoid a PR disaster, his team gave him up and the CBA issued a ban him afterwards. It's as simple as that. BTW, in one poll on the most popular Chinese basketball forum, 94.1% of the voters supported the ban.

The Morey case was similar except that his tweet was political therefore other government agencies were involved.

 

From a business standpoint, if a person is offered a contract by a company (in this case, the CBA) and then does things that offends the company's customers (in this case, Chinese basketball fans), it is absolutely legit for the company to retract the offer and decide not to hire him in the future. The so-called 'freedom of speech' does not mean one can say anything without consequences, especially in non-government organizations which have their own (explicit or implicit) rules of operation. Instagram is a public social media where Lawson's posts can be read by anyone who wants to know about him. Posting an offended message -- for which the cultural difference should be taken into account -- on such a public place is enough to lose a job. If the message was just shared privately with his friends and not spreaded on the Chinese Internet, it would be fine.

 

What is this cakes of which Ty Lawson speaks? I am not hip on the lingo that young people like him uses.

 

On the largest Chinese basketball forum Hupu, there were over 50 threads related to the event, with a total of thousands of posts and millions of views. The poll that I mentioned before had over ten thousand voters. It is obvious that you live in your own world and do not really know what Chinese fans think or do.

Well, these are only your speculation. As I said, there are basketball fans and sports reporters who follow players' social media -- including Instagram -- or watch his posts routinely. Meanwhile, Ty Lawson had already offended several team staffs and reporters in these years for his rude attitude and unprofessional behaviors. I would not be surprised if any of his haters forwarded his message to the Chinese social media and raised public awareness.

 

His post offended the Chinese fans, which would lead to a PR disaster of the organization he works for. That was enough to lose a job.

I can't see that from the picture alone. But it could be. It doesn't change the fact the post was offensive to Chinese fans.

I'm not sure what your logic is. I was responding to your comment "The government had to make an effort to find his Instagram account". My point was that his rude attitude and unprofessional behaviour would lead to haters and any of them could forward his post to the Chinese social media without government involvement.

For 'unprofessional behaviour', I meant what he did at work. He signed a contract with a CBA team for the entire season in 2018. He went back to the US during the Spring Festival and refused to come back to participate in the preparation of playoff games because he was invited to join the Wizards. He eventually came back with a pay rise. However, he left China immediately after losing a win-or-go-home Game 7 of a playoff series and went back to join the Wizards, which led to big questions on whether he actually wanted to win the game at all.