Although we may not all be faced with this dilemma, social networking, and specifically uncouth or insensitive tweets have been landing some rather big names in hot water recently. From Kenneth Cole, (who, via tweet, appropriated of the revolution in Egypt as a means to highlight a new line of clothing) to long time comedian and onetime voice of Iago, the sycophantic parrot from Disney’s movie Aladdin, Gilbert Goddfried (who was let go as the “voice” of Aflac because of some unequivocally offensive tweets during the Tsunami in Japan). Admittedly, most tweeters on Twitter do not receive the same kind of scrutiny such high-profile celebrities do. This fact aside, each Gilbert Goddfried, Kenneth Cole, and every tweeter’s mis-tweets Vault blogger Cathy Vandewater singles out in a recent post called The Top 10 Twitter Firings and Fallouts, point to a broader, more pervasive issue with Twitter and other social media and networking sites of which every employee and job seeker should be aware.
While Twitter and other social networking sites, such as Facebook, can be used as job finding tools, they create, as I have talked about in other posts, a false aura of privacy. Facebook, Twitter, and similar sites provide an outlet through which users can freely share personal news, beliefs, or feelings. In doing this, however, users unwittingly (or perhaps wittingly) enter those fleeting feelings of joy or anger into a massive public record which can be mined, is easily referenced, and is inerasable. They are truly un-retractable statements that will live on well past our lifetime. In light of this, be mindful of what you tweet—a few reckless or insensitive tweets could permanently tarnish your professional image.
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