The digital age is a minefield for the careless

There have been column centimetres aplenty about the latest gaffe from the White House, by including a senior editor – an avowed foe of the administration – in a chat group of the most senior defence cluster in US politics.

But amid the clamour and the condemnation, all of which is justified given what was discussed and at stake, many of us might be wincing in sympathy.

Developments in technology have rendered communication accessible from as small a device as a smartphone, while predictive text has made e-mailing anything a minefield for the unwary and those suffering from attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder or both.

There’s a reason why some e-mail programmes offer a recall button – whether you’ve written something in anger or a fit of pique. It’s helpful if you then inadvertently send that e-mail to the subject you were moaning about.

It’s also why some corporates have disclaimers at the bottom of every communique, absolving them of sending it to you if they didn’t intend to.

They’re as useful as the hoary old chestnut “the views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the publisher”, or even worse, “a retweet [on X] is not an endorsement”.

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A bit like wearing a paper swimming costume to the pool, neither disclaimer will survive first contact with the rottweilers in court.

What technology has done has been to make every single person who posts to social media – which includes group chat platforms – a citizen journalist and, simultaneously, an editor with all the responsibilities which that carries.

It’s something few of us have cottoned onto, because few of us have ever worked as newspaper editors and been held responsible in a court of law.

Those days are changing, especially in South Africa, where there is a significant number of people who have had to pay penalties for their utterances on what they thought were closed groups.

Granted none of them were members of the highest echelon of government getting their jollies off previewing a top-secret military operation halfway around the world, but still.

The worst part though is that there probably won’t be any penalties for them in what is rapidly become a post-truth, post-fact and post-consequence world – but the trickle-down effect of that affects us all.

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