Wait before you Vent on Social Media
Social media is an amazing platform to share, collaborate and connect with friends (or fans if you are a celebrity). However, indiscretion and ignorance on social media can lead to dangerous consequences – sometimes irreversible.
Take the case of Stephanie Rice, triple Olympic Gold medalist who after watching the Wallabies win over South Africa in the tri-nations tweeted unwisely, “Suck on that faggots”. Her homophobic comments didn’t obviously go well with the audience and the media. She had to fore go a contract reportedly worth $800,000. To make it worse, Jaguar, one of her sponsors took back the Jag XF they’d given and severed ties with her.
In another case, English cricketer Dimitri Mascarenhas made foul-mouthed outbursts on Twitter against national selector Geoff Miller, calling him a “F***ing P***k”. As a result, he was fined £1500 and banned from playing for two weeks.
These are just two of several cases where celebrities have been on the receiving end thanks to their indiscretions on social media. Social media doesn’t shield you from your audience, you are what you last said (or Tweeted) and if you aren’t careful your PR manager can do little to assuage the damage.
However, this isn’t limited to celebrities alone, even the common man is at risk if the words aren’t carefully weighed before posting it on social media. Take the case of a US civil servant, a young aide to a New York City politician. She was fired for making “racist” comments about President Obama in her Facebook page.
Or the case of James Brennan from London who discovered this the hard way, when he was fired from his job for writing “F** the Partnership” as his Facebook status. (The Partnership refers to the John Lewis Partnership, the chain of stores where he worked.)
According to a new study by Proofpoint, an Internet security firm, of companies with 1,000 or more employees, 8 percent of these companies report having actually dismissed someone for their behavior on sites like Facebook and LinkedIn. (Source: Mashable).
Inspite of these incidents, I continue to see people rant about their personal and professional lives without realizing the consequences of their action. To a lot of people, social media is a conversational medium and they equate an interaction on social media akin to a real world chat, a conversation between friends that is said and forgotten. This is ignorance of the fact that privacy isn’t one of the virtues of social media. Your messages/updates leave a trail that could be used against you.
So what is the remedy? Do not reveal anything personal or get personal on social media. Check with your organization if there is a social media policy and adhere to it. In any case, exercise discretion with any update on social media and stick with the age old aphorim “Think before you speak”.
Facebook comments:
18 Comments »
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URL
Leave a comment
September 16th, 2010 at 11:05 am
Very very true. Social media is not private, it’s just that-social. To put it another way,
If you wouldn’t go to a street corner in a large city and yell it every few seconds at the top of your lungs, you most likely don’t want to post it for everyone to see (and remember forever.)
September 16th, 2010 at 11:08 am
Social media is not private, it’s just that- social. To put it another way, if you wouldn’t go to a street corner in a large city and yell it every few seconds at the top of your lungs, you most likely don’t want to post if for everyone to see ( and remember forever.)
September 16th, 2010 at 11:09 am
Sorry, didn’t mean to post that twice!
September 16th, 2010 at 11:58 am
Exactly Lea, thats the point many fail to see.
September 16th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Hey Arun,
Quite interesting. I just posted about somewhat similar topic. Quite a pity, we didn’t collaborate though we are back-to-back, here.
Yes, Social Media is quite tricky. Considering we assume multiple roles, this ‘open’ medium can work both ways. As I have mentioned in my blog, it is power and we need to use it responsibly. Do visit my post and let me know your views.
Here’s the link. http://mystupidities.blogspot.com/2010/09/employees-in-era-of-social-media.html
Regards,
Ganesh
September 17th, 2010 at 1:30 am
Very true. Hey! How about writing a post on the lines of “20 things not to do on social media”?
September 19th, 2010 at 10:20 am
Thanks Ganesh, We should work on an article together
September 19th, 2010 at 10:25 am
Kaizer, coming up
September 20th, 2010 at 2:15 am
True ! One must think about the consequences about being too open about oneself on social media…or for that matter anywhere in today’s world unfortunately.Nice article…a good reminder !
September 23rd, 2010 at 1:13 am
Very True!
You should have also mentioned about the most infamous Ciscofatty tweet…and who cannot forget the cattleclass and Holy Cow rant!!
September 23rd, 2010 at 5:20 am
I agree with You so strongly but I must confess that I too have steamed up comments! I sometimes do go off on them and maybe loose few curse words along the way! STRAIGHTALK
September 24th, 2010 at 7:36 am
Informative…nice article. A silent eye opener i shld say…
September 26th, 2010 at 2:18 am
Thanks Simrit, Straightalk, Jayasheela. This is a new medium and we learn as we stumble. Important to learn from the mistakes of others.
September 26th, 2010 at 3:22 am
Hi Prax, Yes that is an oft repeated case on being careless on social media. Will add a footnote on more such incidents.
October 7th, 2010 at 7:25 pm
Hi Arun,
Very Nicely written post…
Yes very true that Social media is very public… It opens up your thoughts and lives to a complete stranger sometimes..
I think since this is a comparatively new medium of communication, people have not yet realized the drawbacks of it..
But we all will learn….
Regards,
Neha
October 7th, 2010 at 10:25 pm
Thanks Neha. Like they say, If you are wise, you learn from the mistakes of others. I’m coming up a post on how to avoid the pitfalls of social media in a day or two.
October 26th, 2010 at 4:07 am
Hi Arun,
Nice post and well written.
Regards
Arjun
March 23rd, 2011 at 12:30 pm
hey great post,great blog
its true about the social media being very public