Further Proof That Facebook Is No Friend to Idiots

By WILL BRINSON and FANHOUSE.COM

Updated 5:39 PM EST, Fri, Dec 12, 2008

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Jim Tartt made a bad choice that will probably get him kicked off of the Florida football team (ironically, this was discovered -- I believe -- by Spencer Hall, a Florida Gator fan, presumably because he's friends with all the Gators, and then used for blogging purposes) when he recently joined a group on Facebook entitled "Africa Gives Nothing to the World but AIDS."

That is, in the words of Gob Bluth, "a huge mistake." And, as Spencer pointed out, hopefully (although unlikely) Tartt just did what I usually do whenever I have 4,000 friend requests (daily) and 10,000 other things that people want me to join: plow through the list by just slamming "Accept" on each one.

But that seems a touch unlikely; obviously there's a far greater chance that Tartt either a) meant this as a "humorous" way to display his raw emotional dislike of a particular continent or b) just doesn't get exactly what joining this group means in terms of a public statement.

So, again, athletes: stop doing stupid things on Facebook.

This isn't like saying something to a camera before, during or after a game when your emotions are on a high; this is clicking a button or typing something in that everyone in the freaking world can see. If you're going to be hateful -- and you shouldn't -- at least do it in the privacy of your own home.

Speaking of houses, it's also going to be interesting to see how Urban Meyer handles this -- Mack Brown already showed that he's not afraid to punish someone for making a poor public choice, so whether Meyer's willing to do the same (arguably, in a slightly different situation) might end up saying a lot about the Florida program.