The mine field: social media.
If you know anything about social media and have been following the news you would have heard about cases where people have been fired for their behaviour on social media.
The website www.oddee.com lists incidents where people lost their jobs for their actions on social media.
Here are five of them:
1 In 2013 a maths teacher in the US tweeted a picture about getting high, and said: ”Naked. Wet. Stoned.”
2 In July 2012, an employee was fired for urinating on nachos at the food outlet he was working at. He posted a picture of his actions on Twitter.
The employee said the nachos we not served to anyone, but it was too late; he was fired.
3 “Going to Africa. Hope I don’t get AIDS. Just kidding. I’m white!”
This was tweeted by a communications director who was making her way to South Africa just before she boarded a flight.
The tweet went viral before she landed in the country.
She apologised for the tweet, but was fired from her job soon after the tweet went out.
4 In 2009, a man was fired for tweeting about how terrible his uniform was at the pizza kitchen he was working at.
5 An instagrammed photo of a woman dressed up for Halloween, looking like a Boston Marathon victim, was fired from her job.
Just last week I attended a social media conference.
The pundits, some of whom have the legal background in media law, warned of the dangers people face in today’s digitalised world.
I thought the above cases were extreme, but the reality is that it only takes one post to destroy your career.
The fact is that it can happen to anyone.
With social media, there is no place to hide from a regrettable tweet or post.
The evidence is there, in digital format.
Even a deleted tweet or Facebook post can be traced, as it has probably been retweeted or a screen grab has been taken.
While the odds are high you will be fired for a racist or derogatory tweet, the chance also exists that you could face legal action.
The greatest asset to social media is also its biggest downfall.
Social media has connected people who would never before have been connected.
But with this interconnectedness from social media comes increasing pressure for companies to take action against staff who have acted out of line.
There is now larger pressure from the ordinary citizen on the people who would never before have been reached.
People no longer have to write to companies, they can simply tweet them and soon, before you know it, the whole world is calling for someone’s head to roll.
A valuable tip I learnt was to think before you use your virtual ink and never say something on social media that you would not say in front of a room packed with 100 people. KvdL
