True story! No lie! Check it out!
Several years ago, I was working for a firm and during that time, I had a established a myspace page. No biggie. Well, while I was there, someone in one of our offices in Louisiana found my page. They then contacted a co-worker in my office in Florida. That co-worker contacted me and said “how come you didn’t tell me that you had a myspace page?”. Of course, I’m thinking “Didn’t think I had to.” lol
Now, I can tell you. I was lucky because my firm was aware that I had a myspace page and my own blog so there wasn’t any issue. Also, I had a strict personal policy that anything I put on the web, I had no problems defending in public.
However, there are so many times when people have this idea that the internet is like Las Vegas. Well, I got news for you. What happens on the web doesn’t necessarily STAY on the web!
For some odd reason, people think that they can post things on the internet and it is ‘free from review’. I got news for you. It’s not that simple anymore.
Back in the day, the only means of communicating through the internet was through e-mail. Then, we starting seeing social media sites like myspace, or facebook, or Hi5, or yahoo! Now, you have social networking sites like NING or TWEET. What makes these sites scarier is that it is very easy to create a fictitious person solely for the purpose of monitoring what people say. Think about it. If you have TWEET and someone asks to follow you but they don’t have a weblink or a picture of themselves, do you REALLY know who the hell they are??? I’m not saying that you should be paranoid but you gotta use some logic.
Alot of social ning sites or groups are open to the public. Tweet and other sites are open as well. So how do you know if someone is following because they want to get to know you or they are just following you for other reasons?
I’m still a firm believer that anything you post to the internet, you should be able to defend in person. Don’t use it as your personal venting site for things you don’t want to come back and bite you because you NEVER know. So when you get froggy and decide that you want to call your boss a jerk or say NASTY things about your company, you can’t be surprised if you get called into the office for a very stern conversation.
Also, be careful with your blogs as well. Sometimes, people don’t realize how damaging their blogs may be. When you decide to post a 6 paragraph dissertation about how much a dirt bag your boss is, what makes you think that won’t come back on you??
Every now and then I get the “It’s a private blog or I’m just tweeting, no big deal”. First of all, if your blog is open to the public, this means that MILLIONS of people can view it. How in the hell is that private?? Oh, and that ‘just tweeting’ thing may be viewed by hundreds or thousands of people. So, you have to think that SOME HOW, it may get back to your boss!
And you can use that same analogy in your personal life. Think about it. Most of your blogs and your tweets are time stamped. So if you say that you were asleep at 10pm but there is a tweet entry at 11pm, do I need to do the math? Also, if you blog about how disgusting your date was with someone and then decide to see them again, can you get mad if they find out about your post?
In this day of social media, sometimes we lose sight of social responsibility. Remember, sometimes, you live by the TWEET or you die by the TWEET!
