How not to use Twitter
You know how you sometimes write an angry email, hit Send, and then regret it a second afterwards?
Well, the rule that you should be very very careful about what you write online applies equally well to social media, as 16 year old Kimberley Swann found when she was sacked from her job for describing her office job as “boring” on Facebook. In future, every prospective employer who googles Swann will find that story.
But someone who should have known better was National Post reporter David George-Cosh, who was extraordinarily abusive to an interviewee called April Dunford on Twitter. Having written a series of angry tweets, he deleted them, but they had already been preserved for posterity by people who took screen captures. You can read the entire exchange on Ian Capstick’s blog. But be warned: if you have delicate sensibilities, look away now.
The message is a simple one: never write anything on the Internet that you wouldn’t want your mum or your employer to see.
We’re indebted to Sally Whittle of Getting Ink for drawing our attention to this story.
