Be careful what you Tweet
Oh dear. Someone at Vodafone UK is going to have a very unhappy weekend. Earlier today, someone within the company used its official Twitter account to send a message that had very little at all to do with mobile phones, or the support thereof, and everything to do with their planned sexual activities over the weekend. We won't post a picture of the offending message (which has been taken down), but The Register has a copy if you want to read it. It isn't safe for work.
But we are posting a screenshot of the many, many Tweets that the company had to send out to bemused followers of the @VodafoneUK Twitter account, wondering whether the account had been hacked, or whether someone at the company really could have been that daft.
It raises the issue of responsible social media use online. We have seen people being sacked for criticising their jobs on Facebook, and for saying things deemed inappropriate on their blogs -- even when their employers were not named.
According to a survey conducted almost a year ago by Internet security company Proofpoint, 8% of US companies had terminated an employee for exposing confidential, sensitive, or private information via social networks.
The National Post (disclosure: I write the occasional story for them) was also embarrassed by one of its reporters, who decided to go postal on a public relations executive, swearing at her online using his Twitter account for everyone to see. What started off as a small and unfortunate spat suddenly developed into a huge gaffe that spread across various blogs and drew comments from hundreds of people.
What was interesting about many of these incidents is that they happened using personal blogs, Facebook accounts, and Twitter accounts. Anyone sensible will realise that you don't post inappropriate material from a work account. What many may fail to realise is that even posting from a personal account could be seen in a very dim light by an employer who believes that you represent them, even when you are blogging or Tweeting on your own time.
So, a word of caution: think before you hit the Return key. Or maybe, if you don't have the willpower to do that, we should ask all of our social media sites to create a version of Google Mail Goggles, to protect us from ourselves.
Danny Bradbury, MSN Tech & Gadgets
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