Remembering that your employees could read your twitter or Facebook posts is the first step to controlling your digital identity. News stories like “Rio policeman loses job after tweet” or “Indie developer releases game critical of his workplace, loses job” have become just another element in the modern work place. While personal twitters are watched by friends and coworkers alike, at least we don’t have to live under a social media microscope like politicians and celebrities. Former Massachusetts Republican senator Scott Brown was accused of drunk tweeting when he posted a stream of nonsense and “Whatevers”. The congressman has hence deleted his tweets but the #bqhatevwr meme will live on in infamy.
Image Credit : bqhatevwr.com
Twitter could also be used by individuals to corrupt the identity of their employers. Less common than companies or journalist getting a hold of incriminating tweets, David can also use twitter to take down Goliath.
On January 31st, a disgruntled HMV employed started to live tweet the companies mass layoffs. The tweets started off with “We’re tweeting live from HR where we’re all being fired! Exciting!!!” and moved on to explain the motive of the tweets as “Under usual circumstances we’d never dare do such a thing as this. However, when the company you dearly love is being ruined…”. The tweets were being widely re-tweeted when twitter crashed. When the account came back an hour later, the HMV account was back in the hands of the company. This is when things started to become interesting as the anonymous employee who was using the HMV twitter account made a statement on her own personal account (@poppy_powers) that she had originally set up the company twitter as an unpaid intern and wished “to show the power of Social Media to those who refused to be educated”. She publicly rebranded her digital identity as either a troublemaker or a protector of free speech, depending on whom you ask. The hashtag #hmvXFactor now includes several different perspectives about the incident from “ someone needs to give @poppy__powers a job” to labeling the entire event “ completely unprofessional”.
Where do you stand on twitter biting back? As more and more young people get jobs in social media do you think the power of social media is being underestimated? Whose digital identity should you value more: yours or that of your employer?
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