While this may not be a recent event, I was drawn to it because of the post by Cassandra about the CNN editor who lost her job after a Twitter post. Social media platforms – Twitter, Facebook, blogs, YouTube, MySpace and the others – have all become so intertwined and ubiquitous, that what one does or says on what site does not, and cannot stay on that one site. We can never really know who is reading our posts, blog entries or Tweets, and what they might do with the information. While CNN anchor Octavia Nasr lost her job following a simple Tweet, Thomas Crampton, found himself in problems of his own, following a change on his Facebook profile.
The story goes that Thomas Crampton, a Facebook user in Asia decided that that showing his engagement status on Facebook gave out a little too much personal information. As soon as he changed this information, he received email messages and phone calls from all around the world asking if he was doing fine and if he needed any emotional support at "this trying moment." What these friends and family members thought after reading the change in his profile was that Thomas and his fiancée were no longer engaged.
Thomas reports that a friend who has the number one blog in France, Loic Le Meur, posted the news on his Twitter feed, which has nearly 1,000 readers, many who do not even know Thomas nor his fiancée. The news was also covered by top blogs like Boing Boing, Time Magazine’s blog, the London Standard, Libération, the French newspaper founded by Jean-Paul Sartre.
What Thomas decided to do at the end was post another update on his Facebook profile which read:
"Thomas Crampton is still getting married, but decided to reduce personal info on Facebook. Did not expect people to react thinking the ceremony was cancelled!!"
While the post solved the problem, Thomas and his fiancée ended up exposing more of their personal information to the world than they intended.
I have also had to explain certain changes made to my Facebook profile to (well meaning) friends and family. I remember once I decided to change my Facebook name to read ‘Sarah Bakane’ instead of ‘Sarah Simo’ (Bakane is my maiden name and Simo is my husband’s name). One minute later, I got messages and calls asking why I had changed my name, and if my husband and I were having problems!
I am sure many other people have faced similar problems. The question I ask is, how private can we be in the realm of the social media?
Read the full story at http://tinyurl.com/67fuo
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1 comment:
This issue drives me crazy. I actually got into a rather heated discussion about it with my roommate not too long ago.
Of course people need to exercise discretion when posting to the public, particularly when you are a public figure and are representing your company. And of course you deserve to be axed if you are foolish enough to post negatively about your job for the world to see. To me, this is all fair and fine.
However, it raises my hackles to know that employers may hack into my profiles to stalk me. Not only is that an egregious violation of privacy, especially if you have all your settings set to private, but it is often an inaccurate depiction! Because we know employers will snoop around our profile, it forces many people to take down pictures or comments that reflect their every day habits. Therefore, there are several people who party hardy but look nice and pristine online. And seriously...who are they kidding? Like THEY never go out and have a drink? I think it's absurd that we can be penalized for having pictures demonstrating perfectly normal social activity. Would they rather allow us to portray ourselves accurately, or should we all try to fit this cookie cutter mold and sell ourselves falsely? This really makes me angry, and I think we aren't allowed any form of true free expression anymore. Facebook is supposed to be for YOU, so why can't we use it as such?
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