Remember that silly tweet you posted? It was so unlike you. That ‘blame it on the heat of the moment’ tweet? It’s going to get you in trouble. Why? Because it’s been a bad week for tweets and it’s only going to get worse:
First, Paris Brown, a 17-year old Youth Police Commissioner for Kent, is getting slammed for tweets she posted three years ago (and deleted this week) that celebrate drink, drugs and rock and roll – all illegal at her age. But, like many before her, she’s standing her ground and refusing to leave her £15,000 role which sees her bridge the gap between young people and the police.
Paris’ former Twitter profile – @vilulabelle – played home to a range of ill-fitting updates for someone of her position, which causes me to wonder if she’s on the right career path. That’s if the police is still home to institutional ‘isms’? But that’s another matter.
The moral of this story is, Twitter doesn’t define your past, but if your digital footprint isn’t clean, it might impact your future.
I’ve said it before – we need to place more emphasis on online security and etiquette. If we can hire people to tidy away our social media profiles and passwords when we pass away, why aren’t we teaching young people to clear up their act now?
We could start with the hundreds of people who are celebrating the poor death of the UK’s first female Prime Minister Baroness Margaret Thatcher. So, much so, Lord Alan Sugar has come out of his office to dub them ‘scum’.
After passing away yesterday morning from a stroke, it prompted lots of people to ‘have their say’ including one Oddbins Crouch End employee.
Someone did enough damage in 140-characters to get themselves suspended for encouraging consumers to celebrate the news with money off champagne. Not out of the ordinary for a wine shop, but enough to cause offence.
Now deleted, Oddbins’ management apologised for its poor taste and timing, and has speedily announced its got a disciplinary meeting date in the diary, with the person in question, to have words.
The moral of this story is to pull scheduled tweets during big breaking news stories and get approval on all updates plugging the gap.
So, be careful what you say. A little birdie might just show you for what you really are
