Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff works dot coming. Hello again, everyone,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech stuff. My name is Chris Palette,
Speaker 1: and I'm an editor at how stuff works dot Com.
Speaker 1: Sitting across from me as usual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm not shouting, all right, I am. I'm shouting. I'm shouting.
Speaker 1: I'm shouting. You know, I'll have to ask you where
Speaker 1: you picked that one up because I don't know that one.
Speaker 1: You don't know that one? Now, I don't know. Okay,
Speaker 1: that was That was a classic film from the eighties. Actually,
Speaker 1: I wonder if it's got to be one you've seen.
Speaker 1: If you have not seen this movie, you will have
Speaker 1: to watch it. Okay, but we'll talk about it afterwards. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's talk about what we're going to actually address today. Okay,
Speaker 1: so today we're going to talk about some some mistakes
Speaker 1: people have made utilizing social media in its various forms
Speaker 1: and social networking. I see, so I thought I thought
Speaker 1: before we actually get into any cases, we can kind
Speaker 1: of talk a little bit about why this has become
Speaker 1: a problem sort of from an armchair psychology way right,
Speaker 1: good because I only I went to the school of
Speaker 1: armchair psychology. Yeah, yeah, I I have a degree in
Speaker 1: lazy boy psychiatry actually, so I can. I never mind anyway.
Speaker 1: So what my theory about why social media and social
Speaker 1: networking has given rise to a lot of people making
Speaker 1: goofy mistakes is that it allows you to voice your
Speaker 1: thoughts to essentially a global audience almost immediately allows you nay,
Speaker 1: I say, encourages you to do this. It tasks me,
Speaker 1: um it, Oh there's something going on I should write
Speaker 1: about that. Now I have had a thought, let me
Speaker 1: express it to everyone I know and to people I
Speaker 1: don't know as well. Yeah, especially with things like like
Speaker 1: cell phones and smartphones tying into this technology, it's really
Speaker 1: given us the opportunity to express a thought almost instantaneously. Yes,
Speaker 1: and in some cases, depending on what it is that
Speaker 1: you're doing, I would say that it, uh, you're you're
Speaker 1: trying to scoop everyone else. If you see something happening
Speaker 1: that that could be uh, you know, m historical event
Speaker 1: or just something compelling where you'd like to, you know,
Speaker 1: get the jump on everyone else. Tweeting it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: there goes somebody famous down the sidewalk. I should tweet that, right,
Speaker 1: And also it gives you this feeling that, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: it's not that far removed from text messaging, right, but
Speaker 1: when you're seeing a text message, you're sending it to
Speaker 1: a specific person, it's not going out to the public
Speaker 1: at large, and you get this idea. It's kind of
Speaker 1: like when you're chatting with friends. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: expect the things you say to friends, as long as
Speaker 1: it's not directly about them or their significant others. You
Speaker 1: don't expect that stuff to come back and kick you
Speaker 1: in the butt. True, right, like you can get with
Speaker 1: your friends and complain about your job. That's that's true.
Speaker 1: And it's funny because you figure, well, I don't know
Speaker 1: you do, but some people might think, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: I've only got twenty three followers. Only those twenty three
Speaker 1: people are going to read my Twitter account. But unless
Speaker 1: you've locked it down in your privacy settings, that's not
Speaker 1: the case necessarily. And you know, the Library of Congress
Speaker 1: is archiving these things, so there's a public records, a
Speaker 1: public record of what you're doing, at least on Twitter.
Speaker 1: But but This is the case for various venues, not
Speaker 1: just Twitter, but we're also going to talk about Facebook
Speaker 1: and probably YouTube, and there's even a Craigslist story in here. Really, yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know that when you're talking about yes you do, Oh,
Speaker 1: yes I do, Yes you do, it's funny. Okay. So
Speaker 1: we've got some story is to share about some fairly
Speaker 1: famous or at least infamous misuses of social networking. And
Speaker 1: really the reason why we're doing this it's kind of
Speaker 1: a cautionary tale, right. It's letting people know you need
Speaker 1: to be careful with what you say on the Internet
Speaker 1: because it can have real life consequences further down the road,
Speaker 1: even if you were just being silly or joking. And
Speaker 1: I can say from personal experience, I mean I've been
Speaker 1: guilty of sending something on Twitter or posting posting something
Speaker 1: on Facebook that I intended to be expressed one way,
Speaker 1: but due to either of my failing because I worded
Speaker 1: it incorrectly or because of the the way people inferred
Speaker 1: what I meant, it kind of um didn't go the
Speaker 1: way I hadn't anticipated. It also does not help that
Speaker 1: if you get angry, you know, you should make sure
Speaker 1: that you're as far away from a computer or smartphone
Speaker 1: as humanly possible, because you will your your inner sir,
Speaker 1: your inner editor tends to take little breaks whenever you
Speaker 1: get ticked off, and the next thing you know, you're
Speaker 1: sending out ah an obscenity laden tweet that particularly points
Speaker 1: the finger at specific individuals in your life, and then
Speaker 1: you will have a reckoning. So, um, should we tell
Speaker 1: everyone which tweet it was that made us think this
Speaker 1: would be a good time to do this episode? Go
Speaker 1: for it? So fashion designer Kenneth Cole. And and now
Speaker 1: we don't really need to say anything else because this
Speaker 1: is pretty close in proximity to when we're recording it,
Speaker 1: and I'll probably release fairly close to that too. You. Um,
Speaker 1: Kenneth Cole has a history of trying to demonstrate that
Speaker 1: he's with it. He knows what's going on in the world.
Speaker 1: He pays attention to world events. Yeah, and if you
Speaker 1: don't know who Kenneth Cole is, he's a fashion designer.
Speaker 1: Didn't I say a fashion designer? You probably did and
Speaker 1: I just zoned out. Um, I haven't had my coffee yet,
Speaker 1: so if I if I missed it anyway, that's good
Speaker 1: to point out Uh, well, he's uh. He apparently is
Speaker 1: uh one of the people at his company that has
Speaker 1: access to his company's Twitter account, or at least he
Speaker 1: used to Yeah, well, or or somebody tweeted and and
Speaker 1: attributed it to him because they put their um uh,
Speaker 1: they put their initials casey by by this, so we
Speaker 1: assume that it is in fact kennethic goal and he
Speaker 1: did in fact apologize for it later. But um as
Speaker 1: the uh, I guess is it safe to call it
Speaker 1: a revolution in Egypt? A lot of Egyptian people call
Speaker 1: it a revolution, so I guess if they're the authorities
Speaker 1: on this um they a few days after the protests
Speaker 1: had begun in Egypt, Mr Cole apparently quoted tweeted and
Speaker 1: I quote millions are in uproar in Cairo in hashtag
Speaker 1: Cairo rememor is they heard our new spring collection is
Speaker 1: now available online at and put the r L right now.
Speaker 1: Using the hashtag Cairo means that if you were to
Speaker 1: use Twitter search to find out the latest information of
Speaker 1: what was going on in Cairo and use that hashtag,
Speaker 1: this would be one of the messages that would pull up,
Speaker 1: depending on you know, how long after you were looking
Speaker 1: it up because there was a lot of stuff happening, right,
Speaker 1: So I mean clearly that that list would be filling
Speaker 1: up quickly. But it means that this, this promotional tweet
Speaker 1: would appear in the middle of all these messages that
Speaker 1: were about social change, and a lot of people thought
Speaker 1: that this was in bad taste, and Chris You pointed
Speaker 1: out that it was also a case of just incredibly
Speaker 1: poor timing, because not only was it in poor taste,
Speaker 1: just to start with um, when Kenneth Cole posted this message,
Speaker 1: it was when the protests were still relatively peaceful, right,
Speaker 1: And so it happened to be hosted the same day
Speaker 1: that some of the protests began to turn violent, that
Speaker 1: there was violence enacted upon the protesters, and so then
Speaker 1: it went from poor taste to astonishingly poor taste. And
Speaker 1: here's the thing about the internet. The Internet is kind
Speaker 1: of like a big brother, right. Big brothers tend to,
Speaker 1: you know, bully their their younger siblings around a little
Speaker 1: bit every now and then. But if someone else picks
Speaker 1: on that younger sibling, big brother gets really mad and
Speaker 1: then may lash out in a way that is not
Speaker 1: necessarily equivalent to whatever the slight was so in other words,
Speaker 1: if you were to insult my little sister and I
Speaker 1: have one, I might punch you in the mush and uh.
Speaker 1: And so the Internet punched Kenneth Cole in the mush
Speaker 1: so hard. There were tons of of parody and satirical
Speaker 1: tweets that came out, supposedly attributed to Kenneth Cole that
Speaker 1: were about other major events being belittled, essentially as part
Speaker 1: of a marketing scheme. Um. And as Chris said, Kenneth
Speaker 1: Cole himself actually apologized on Facebook. I might add, and
Speaker 1: I have the quote for that if you would like
Speaker 1: me to read it. I apologize to everyone who was
Speaker 1: offended by my insensitive tweet about the situation in Egypt.
Speaker 1: I've dedicated my life to raising awareness about serious social issues,
Speaker 1: and in hindsight, my attempt at humor regarding a nation
Speaker 1: liberating themselves against oppression was poorly timed and absolutely inappropriate.
Speaker 1: So you have to admit he did not deflect this
Speaker 1: in any way. He accepted responsibility, which that's an admirable thing,
Speaker 1: and we should all remember that there are times when
Speaker 1: some of us will make a joke about a particularly
Speaker 1: sensitive topic without fully considering the implications of that joke.
Speaker 1: I've done it in the past, but pretty much everyone has, right,
Speaker 1: It's it's one thing to to do this, however, when
Speaker 1: you're around a couple of your friends by seeing a
Speaker 1: news event on TV and making that joke, versus broadcasting
Speaker 1: it on Twitter to the world, including a link a
Speaker 1: much bigger forum too, you know, because then only is
Speaker 1: it a joke, it's a marketing ploy, right, So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was definitely a bad choice. He apologized for it. Um,
Speaker 1: I'd say that most of the fallout has pretty much
Speaker 1: died down about around the time we're recording this. It's
Speaker 1: been it's been a more than a week since, a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks since uh that happened. But um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: he was. He was raked over the virtual coals for
Speaker 1: quite some time for that, and that's that was really
Speaker 1: what kind of precipitated this discussion. Now, not not everything
Speaker 1: we're going to talk about here is necessarily something that
Speaker 1: gets someone fired or gets them in trouble with their friends.
Speaker 1: In some cases, it's just something that's bizarre and awkward,
Speaker 1: And I wanted to do one of those just to
Speaker 1: kind of give you the idea of what can happen
Speaker 1: when taken to the extreme. Before I, before I really
Speaker 1: get into this, this is about David Prager, who is
Speaker 1: an executive with Revision three. Uh. Now, I have never
Speaker 1: spoken with David. I have not met David, but I
Speaker 1: know people who do know David, and they all say
Speaker 1: that he's a great guy and is just a you know,
Speaker 1: a cool cat. That's the deal with David. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: David did get a little bit of a heat put
Speaker 1: on him. A lot of jokes were made at his
Speaker 1: expense for something that he did on Twitter a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. Um. He was the victim of a
Speaker 1: home invasion, more or less, and rather than calling the police,
Speaker 1: he tweeted about it at length. I would like to
Speaker 1: read to you a selection of the tweets he wrote,
Speaker 1: keeping in mind, I cut out a lot of them,
Speaker 1: so there when you sit there and think, wow, this
Speaker 1: guy tweeted a lot. That's about maybe sixty percent of
Speaker 1: what he actually said. So here's how it starts. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe I should lock my door. I swear a random
Speaker 1: dude just walked into my bathroom. And I can't believe
Speaker 1: I haven't freaked out next, and I can't believe I'm
Speaker 1: tweeting about it while he's still here. I wonder if
Speaker 1: he's sleepwalking or if maybe I should freak out. Then okay,
Speaker 1: he's still in the bathroom. And now I'm thinking a
Speaker 1: combo of hobo and drunk and sleepwalking dude. He seems
Speaker 1: late twenties. What next? Next? Should I call the cops
Speaker 1: like you guys have recommended, find a blunt object before
Speaker 1: opening the door. My gut tells me he's harmless. Next,
Speaker 1: but I could be wrong about the harmless assumption. Next, Okay,
Speaker 1: about to make a move, putting shoes on first, Thank
Speaker 1: god he tweeted that. Next, Okay, have weapon if I
Speaker 1: need it, but don't plan on any confrontation with it.
Speaker 1: About to go in Next, Okay, still haven't done anything.
Speaker 1: He is still in there, Gonna set up a U
Speaker 1: stream now I think stand by. So then he starts
Speaker 1: to live stream the home invasion with a webcam. If
Speaker 1: you haven't been watching my youth stream, the dude passed
Speaker 1: out in my bathroom and I just dragged him out. Next,
Speaker 1: I think the drama is over. In truder is out
Speaker 1: door is locked. I think I finally need some sleep,
Speaker 1: and that that's the conclusion. Keep in mind. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I cut out about the tweets he sent during that
Speaker 1: that whole thing, Now, David David got a little bit
Speaker 1: of joking at his expense for rather than reacting to
Speaker 1: a possible home invasion in a way that most of
Speaker 1: us would, which is that we'd call the cops and
Speaker 1: perhaps lock our own bedroom door to make sure that,
Speaker 1: you know, we would remain safe, he decided to broadcast
Speaker 1: it to the world. Uh, that's an unusual faux paw. Uh.
Speaker 1: And like I said, from everything I've heard, he's actually
Speaker 1: a pretty cool guy. So thankfully it was a peaceful resolution,
Speaker 1: I guess. And uh, maybe he locks his door now perhaps,
Speaker 1: how how anyone in this world doesn't lock their door?
Speaker 1: Of course I live in Atlanta. I can't even imagine,
Speaker 1: not like like when I watch a show like Friends
Speaker 1: where people just walk in and out of their their apartments.
Speaker 1: I think, what world is that? I can't imagine. I
Speaker 1: would not be able to even sit down if I
Speaker 1: knew my door was unlocked. Um, but we've got some
Speaker 1: other ones. Here's here's um, here's a good way to
Speaker 1: really mess up after a great job interview. Oh Cisco Fatty,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, you got it exactly right. Connor Riley, also
Speaker 1: known as the Connor on Twitter wrote, Cisco just offered
Speaker 1: me a job. Now I have to weigh the utility
Speaker 1: of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San
Speaker 1: Jose and hating the work. All right, Guys, if you
Speaker 1: interview for a job, don't slam the work immediately after
Speaker 1: the job interview. Don't sit there and say you're you're
Speaker 1: debating on whether or not you're going to accept the position,
Speaker 1: because especially if it happens to be a computer or
Speaker 1: or i T type company, because there's a chance they're
Speaker 1: gonna notice. Yes, like the guy from Cisco who wrote,
Speaker 1: who was the hiring manager, I'm sure they would love
Speaker 1: to know that you will hate the work. We hear
Speaker 1: at Cisco are well versed in the web. Yeah, so
Speaker 1: um burn and uh And this this particular tweet also
Speaker 1: gave rise to lots of parodies and spoofs. People were
Speaker 1: joking about Cisco fatty because he was talking about the
Speaker 1: fatty paycheck. Uh. Yeah, you don't want that kind of reputation.
Speaker 1: And keep in mind, like again, he was probably thinking
Speaker 1: that he was just posting that to his friends, but
Speaker 1: because he didn't have a protected Twitter account, everyone got
Speaker 1: to see it. Um. And then there are other ways
Speaker 1: of having social social media faue pas as well, like Skittles, Skittles, yeah,
Speaker 1: candy exactly, because not all of these are necessarily people
Speaker 1: saying stupid things online and getting in trouble. In some cases,
Speaker 1: it's a company allowing people to say stupid things. Yeah.
Speaker 1: What Skittles did was Skittles created and a little applet
Speaker 1: on their web page that would automatically post Twitter messages
Speaker 1: that had the hashtag Skittles in them, And once people
Speaker 1: figured that out, they began to have a little bit
Speaker 1: of fun uh using these Skittles hashtag. Here's one that
Speaker 1: was posted by Baritunde Thurston, who is a comedian. This
Speaker 1: is one of the few pretty much safer work ones,
Speaker 1: although again tasteless humor. Here we go hashtag Skittles got
Speaker 1: stuck in my mouth while I was driving, forced me
Speaker 1: to slam into orphanage, killing hundreds. I'll never eat them again.
Speaker 1: So in that case, the faux pas is a company
Speaker 1: thinking that people will be reasonable and not take advance
Speaker 1: enag of a of a system to in order to
Speaker 1: make tasteless jokes. Uh. Lesson learned one of the major
Speaker 1: auto manufacturers here in the United States posted um UM
Speaker 1: an opportunity to make your own commercial on their website
Speaker 1: about suv s or utility vehicles, which are uh, very
Speaker 1: useful vehicles, but they also consume a lot of gas
Speaker 1: petroleum petrol um And so rather than making viral video
Speaker 1: videos that would extol the virtues of driving SUVs and
Speaker 1: o MG, aren't these fun, people started talking about how
Speaker 1: much gas they were using and how they were destroying
Speaker 1: the planet. And I'm going to try to find the company.
Speaker 1: If not, then you can write, but don't pause the
Speaker 1: podcast now if when Jonathan's talking, I can't find it.
Speaker 1: But that reminded me of that because I had forgotten
Speaker 1: about the Skittles thing UM completely because it's been that's
Speaker 1: been a couple of years ago, hasn't it now now
Speaker 1: that we're recording in UM. But they are all sorts
Speaker 1: of other things. Politicians have been terrible about this. They um.
Speaker 1: Of course, they've been caught tweeting and emailing and doing
Speaker 1: all kinds of things in session when they're supposed to
Speaker 1: actually be paying attention to what's going on during the
Speaker 1: State of the Union address. Yes, UM but I was
Speaker 1: thinking of the United States representative from Michigan, Pete Hoekstra,
Speaker 1: who who was on a UH state trip to Iraq
Speaker 1: and Afghanistan, except the military would have preferred that he
Speaker 1: didn't tell people where he was, and he was tweeting
Speaker 1: about his whereabouts and saying that he had just landed
Speaker 1: in Iraq, and the Pentagon was really upset with him,
Speaker 1: for it makes protecting a public servant much more difficult
Speaker 1: when the public servant is broadcasting his position exactly. And
Speaker 1: as we know, people in you know, everywhere in the
Speaker 1: world at least did had access to these tools are
Speaker 1: using them. So it is very likely that somebody who
Speaker 1: may have wanted to remove him from the planet was
Speaker 1: reading that right as he was tweeting it. Here's another
Speaker 1: politico who who used social networking poorly, Virginia State Senator
Speaker 1: Jeff Frederick, member of the Republican Party. He tweeted about
Speaker 1: a Democrat named Ralph Northam who was considering uh leaving
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party. I remember this. Here's the Twitter message.
Speaker 1: Big news coming out of Senate. Apparently one dem is
Speaker 1: either switching or leaving the DEM Caucus. Negotiations for power
Speaker 1: sharing underway now if he had done this after the switch,
Speaker 1: it wouldn't have been such a big deal. But he
Speaker 1: did it before, which gave the Democrats, who were paying
Speaker 1: attention to the internet, the opportunity to find out who
Speaker 1: was the person the person who was going to quote
Speaker 1: unquote leave the Democratic Party and put a lot of
Speaker 1: political pressure on that guy, Ralph Northam to stay a Democrat.
Speaker 1: And that is exactly what happened, which means that Jeff
Speaker 1: Frederick managed to stick it to his own party. You know,
Speaker 1: they might have gained another uh you know, an ally,
Speaker 1: but because he got a little thumb happy on Twitter,
Speaker 1: that ended up not happening. Yeah. Actually, that's funny because
Speaker 1: according to the information I saw now that the Senate
Speaker 1: um in Virginia is has an even number of members,
Speaker 1: and so the lieutenant governor, uh, in the case of
Speaker 1: a tie vote in the Senate, is the tiebreaker. Now,
Speaker 1: the lieutenant governor was a Republican, and if if the
Speaker 1: switch had been made, it would have been an even
Speaker 1: split down the middle, which means that if there was
Speaker 1: a vote down party lines half Democrat half Republican, the
Speaker 1: lieutenant governor, a Republican, would have been able to Basically
Speaker 1: they would have been able to do anything they needed
Speaker 1: to do down party lines, because you know that that
Speaker 1: one UH senator had switched, but leaving the Democrats at
Speaker 1: fifty one forty nine, um prevented that from happening. So
Speaker 1: that was probably not such a good move. Actually, I'm
Speaker 1: not sure that it's there a hundred senators in Virginia,
Speaker 1: so anyway it was, or however many of there are. UM.
Speaker 1: So I was gonna say, if you are not supposed
Speaker 1: to tweet during jury duty, you should you should not
Speaker 1: tweet during jury duty or or use Facebook, or use Facebook.
Speaker 1: I'm specifically thinking about you to date show anchorman or
Speaker 1: weatherman alt Roker. Well, I like you, aut Roker. However,
Speaker 1: you shouldn't tweet during jury duty. I don't even know
Speaker 1: this story. Can you tell me a little more? Not
Speaker 1: a lot? But he he got busted for tweeting because well,
Speaker 1: the thing is, I mean, if you're in jury duty,
Speaker 1: you're not supposed to be discussing the details of the case.
Speaker 1: It's supposed to be quiet. Um. Then again, you don't
Speaker 1: often have media personalities and your jury pool at that
Speaker 1: at that level, because if you don't live in the
Speaker 1: United States, Mr Roker is a well known and pretty
Speaker 1: well liked, uh celebrity on one of the morning news
Speaker 1: shows Networks New Shows, and uh, yeah, I mean a
Speaker 1: lot of lots and lots of people know who he is.
Speaker 1: He's a he's a pretty personable guy and easy to
Speaker 1: follow on Twitter, and yeah, that that draws a lot
Speaker 1: of attention. You would go, hey, how Roker's in jury
Speaker 1: duty with me and he's tweeting about it. There was
Speaker 1: a juror in the United Kingdom who uh apparently was
Speaker 1: really confused over how she should side in the case,
Speaker 1: and so she used her Facebook profile to ask her
Speaker 1: friends what she should do and essentially made a poll
Speaker 1: over whether she should give a guilty or not guilty verdict.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, the judge was not amused and she
Speaker 1: was removed from the jury pool. Uh so, yeah, that
Speaker 1: was also not a very wise decision. I'm getting back
Speaker 1: to politicians for a second. We mentioned Craig's list briefly.
Speaker 1: I gotta I gotta tell this story though. Okay, so
Speaker 1: here's the other thing about if if you are uh
Speaker 1: if if you have decided that you are going to
Speaker 1: have an affair, first of all, shame upon you. But secondly, Uh,
Speaker 1: you might want to make sure you're not leaving a
Speaker 1: easily followable trail, or that you're talking to people who
Speaker 1: might recognize who you are. That unfortunately happened with Christopher Lee,
Speaker 1: who was a congressman who responded to a personal ad
Speaker 1: on Craigslist of a woman who was looking for someone,
Speaker 1: and he claimed at that he was a thirty nine
Speaker 1: year old divorced lobbyist. He is actually a forty six
Speaker 1: year old former congressman who was married and has kids. Um,
Speaker 1: And he posted he sent the lady a picture of himself, uh,
Speaker 1: making a muscle man pose, wearing no shirt at all,
Speaker 1: and that has now become sort of his image on
Speaker 1: the web, which I think probably has heard his political future,
Speaker 1: at least in the short term. Although this is America,
Speaker 1: you never know true true enough. Um, yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: that the you know, the United States has a a
Speaker 1: place where many entrepreneurs, you know, set out to strike
Speaker 1: it rich. Like I'm thinking about Mark Cuban, who made
Speaker 1: a whole lot of money on an internet startup which
Speaker 1: went big and then he bought the Dallas Mavericks started
Speaker 1: complaining about the officiating on social media. Yeah, uh, tweeted
Speaker 1: got fined twenty five thousand dollars complaining about the refs. Yeah, yeah, sports,
Speaker 1: We've we've actually done a podcast about social media and
Speaker 1: sports and we talked about how the two don't necessarily
Speaker 1: go hand in hand and uh or how how you know.
Speaker 1: Some teams and some um stadiums have struggled with the
Speaker 1: ability of their employees to now reach a global audience
Speaker 1: like it used to be that if you were a
Speaker 1: player or if well, players are a little different because
Speaker 1: they have access to too larger media outlets. But let's
Speaker 1: say that you're an employee with a stadium. Chances are
Speaker 1: if you were complaining about things, you were just complaining
Speaker 1: it to a small group of people and no one
Speaker 1: really cared. But the Philadelphia Eagles Stadium cared when um UH,
Speaker 1: an employee was critic sizing the team, the Eagles team
Speaker 1: on Facebook and the the stadium uh, the stadium brass
Speaker 1: decided to fire him for that. Then, Actually, I guess
Speaker 1: Pennsylvania in general has problems with employees, sports employees and
Speaker 1: the internet. Because Andrew Kurtz, who and I love this,
Speaker 1: was a Pittsburgh pirate Peroguey mascot was fired because he
Speaker 1: criticized team management of the Pittsburgh Pirates on Facebook, he
Speaker 1: got he got canned. So you know, if you're a
Speaker 1: paroguey just be careful about that social networking. Also, you're
Speaker 1: delicious what a spud uh, you know? And it doesn't
Speaker 1: take a parogue to make a mistake on on Twitter though,
Speaker 1: I mean, you could, you know, tweet your personal phone
Speaker 1: number to twenty one followers yikes? Like New York Times
Speaker 1: tech columnists, well well well spected tech columnist David Hog,
Speaker 1: I think I think a lot of us have accidentally
Speaker 1: put out a public tweet when we thought we were
Speaker 1: doing a direct message. I know I have, and I've
Speaker 1: seen others too. I remember there was there was one
Speaker 1: where it was supposed to be Oh, I remember it
Speaker 1: was pollen Storm paullen Storm, the musical group, sending a
Speaker 1: message to Neil Gaiman because they were going up to
Speaker 1: visit Neil Gaiman. And Neil Gaiman and Poullen Storm and
Speaker 1: Jonathan Colton are all friends and Neil Gaiman's a very
Speaker 1: well known author, and paullen Storm accidentally publicly tweeted the
Speaker 1: location of the restaurant they were all going to have
Speaker 1: lunch at, and then immediately send on a message saying
Speaker 1: please don't mob us. And because it was meant to
Speaker 1: be a private message and it wasn't good times with
Speaker 1: times also not necessarily a good idea to reveal that
Speaker 1: you were leaving your house. Um. Israel Himan uh tweeted
Speaker 1: to his I think he had around a couple of
Speaker 1: thousand followers at the time, that he was leaving his
Speaker 1: house to go on vacation for a ten hour drive,
Speaker 1: and then he tweeted later that he made it um.
Speaker 1: And then when he got home he found out that
Speaker 1: his house had been broken into. And in the interview
Speaker 1: I read and uh, I got I got a lot
Speaker 1: of my ideas from from Keymate Houstner's story at ABC
Speaker 1: News about tweet faux pause, the ones that I didn't
Speaker 1: already know. I found some other juicy ones, and uh,
Speaker 1: this is one of them. And in the interview they
Speaker 1: did with him said, you know, my wife thinks it
Speaker 1: may have been random, but I'm not so sure. That's
Speaker 1: a paraphrase. It wasn't exact quote, but he he essentially
Speaker 1: said that, you know, I think that maybe that was
Speaker 1: a really bad idea on my part, and yes, it
Speaker 1: it really kind of is it's it's nice to have
Speaker 1: these check in enabled systems like four squares and Wala,
Speaker 1: but you have to be really careful because you really
Speaker 1: don't know. If people know who you are on there
Speaker 1: and they know where where you live and you've said,
Speaker 1: you know, hey, I'm across the country on a business trip,
Speaker 1: that's almost open advertising to come and get robbed. Now
Speaker 1: that being said, if you are careful about your private
Speaker 1: information online and you can't necessarily find your address online,
Speaker 1: then you're probably in okay shape. One way to test that,
Speaker 1: by the way, is to go to Google and type
Speaker 1: your address and not your name, but your address, and
Speaker 1: see if your name comes up in relation to your address.
Speaker 1: And if so, then somewhere on the web, whether it's
Speaker 1: Facebook where you've got it public information there or somewhere else, uh,
Speaker 1: there is a link between you and your address. So
Speaker 1: you want to make sure that those are clean. In fact, really,
Speaker 1: as a general rule, you want to kind of if
Speaker 1: you're going to be interviewing for a job or if
Speaker 1: you're entering the professional market, you really want to kind
Speaker 1: of scrub your social network stuff clean as much as possible,
Speaker 1: especially for Facebook, you know, use those privacy settings make
Speaker 1: sure that the people who have access to say, let's
Speaker 1: let's say you're using Facebook to have fun with your friends.
Speaker 1: Let's let's also say that if you're going to do that,
Speaker 1: make sure your privacy settings are set to a point
Speaker 1: where not just anyone could log on and see the
Speaker 1: photo of you, you know, drinking alcohol with your shirt
Speaker 1: off and you know, uh uh a funny but obscene
Speaker 1: word written across your chest. That's not something that your your, your,
Speaker 1: your future employer is going to find very impressive. In
Speaker 1: most cases, I will use the qualifier in most cases
Speaker 1: because who knows I did make a joke the other
Speaker 1: day that one day, the same people who are posting
Speaker 1: these irresponsible pictures of themselves on Facebook without any privacy settings,
Speaker 1: someday they will be the people in charge. And that's
Speaker 1: when social moray's will crumble, institutions will fall, zombies will eyes,
Speaker 1: and Ghostbusters three will be in theaters. Thank you, So,
Speaker 1: I mean, they're There are tons of other examples, but
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to kind of wrap this up. I
Speaker 1: did want to mention a few times, just because you
Speaker 1: do make a mistake, or let's not even call it
Speaker 1: a mistake. Let's say that you're just expressing your opinion,
Speaker 1: because there are lots of cases where people were either
Speaker 1: fired or were um uh, were harassed just for expressing
Speaker 1: an opinion on these social networking sites, not necessarily an
Speaker 1: uninformed opinion, um and not. It doesn't always turn out badly,
Speaker 1: and we do have to walk a fine line between
Speaker 1: making sure that we don't we're that we're not irresponsible
Speaker 1: online and making sure that our freedom of speech and
Speaker 1: our freedom of expression remains protected. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: there's a balance there. We're not telling you don't say
Speaker 1: what you're thinking online. We're just saying think about it
Speaker 1: first and think about the potential consequences before it's saying it.
Speaker 1: And here's what I would close with. In Australia, there
Speaker 1: was have you heard of the Facebook six um? You know,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure that I have. So in Australia, there
Speaker 1: was the their corrections systems systems. So the prison system
Speaker 1: in Australia UM was going through some some trouble and
Speaker 1: some of the hundreds of employees actually joined a Facebook
Speaker 1: group where they could have discussions about the system, the
Speaker 1: politics within the system, the troubles they perceived, the potential
Speaker 1: solutions really a place to kind of not just suggest things,
Speaker 1: but to gripe and grouse. I mean everyone occasionally needs
Speaker 1: to do that, right, just to go home and get
Speaker 1: it out vent and say, God, it was just such
Speaker 1: a bad day at work and blah blah blah blah.
Speaker 1: Not me because I love my job, but everyone else.
Speaker 1: Uh So, Anyway, the the commissioner for the Corrective Services
Speaker 1: Department in Australia UH singled out six particular employees among
Speaker 1: the hundreds that were using this Facebook group and said
Speaker 1: that they were using language that was public bullying and
Speaker 1: so started to make the move to have them terminated
Speaker 1: from their positions. Uh. The the six ended up having
Speaker 1: a suit against the Corrective Services Department and six months
Speaker 1: later they won the suit, which essentially said that no,
Speaker 1: you can't fire them because they were criticizing the department.
Speaker 1: And uh but I mean that's just another indication that
Speaker 1: there are times where where if you express your opinion
Speaker 1: there could be consequences. Now, hopefully if it's something like
Speaker 1: this case and you have you have actual, you know,
Speaker 1: case to support your your perspective, it'll all turn out
Speaker 1: all right. But that's six months out of your life.
Speaker 1: So again, it's the balance between being able to speak
Speaker 1: your mind and knowing that there could be potential consequences
Speaker 1: further down the road. So there's an element of bravery
Speaker 1: there too. I mean, I'm sure that the people in
Speaker 1: Egypt who were using Twitter and Facebook in order to
Speaker 1: criticize the government and to organize protests, they were doing that.
Speaker 1: I'm sure with the knowledge that if things went poorly,
Speaker 1: it could really come to haunt them later on. But
Speaker 1: but they showed courage in that case. But there's a
Speaker 1: difference between showing courage and a protest and calling your
Speaker 1: employer a jerk, right, So just make sure you know
Speaker 1: that difference, because sometimes I don't. By the way, just
Speaker 1: to follow up, I never did find the the SUV company,
Speaker 1: So I'm sure somebody if you would like to tell
Speaker 1: us on Facebook who that was. I can't remember for
Speaker 1: the life of me who it was. Um, And I
Speaker 1: looked at the outroker thing because I just basically pulled
Speaker 1: it from my list. Um, he was actually taking pictures
Speaker 1: and posting pictures of the prospective jurors. He said he
Speaker 1: got permission and U and the the court basically said
Speaker 1: he was okay because somebody told him it was okay,
Speaker 1: but it really wasn't okay to do that. But someone
Speaker 1: had told him it was okay, so they weren't. It's like, well,
Speaker 1: you know, you got told something. It isn't incorrect, but
Speaker 1: you were actually told that, so it's not your fault.
Speaker 1: Even so, I don't do it. I can't imagine being
Speaker 1: the person who told him, oh, sure you can do that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I I don't think i'd want to have the pictures,
Speaker 1: but yes, that is. That is the more specific information
Speaker 1: about about what he was doing. I'm sorry I didn't
Speaker 1: have that earlier. I was just grabbing all kinds of
Speaker 1: crazy things and I thought, oh, that's interesting. Yeah, like
Speaker 1: we said, there are a lot more stories here. I mean,
Speaker 1: there's stories about companies that laid off, you know, more
Speaker 1: than a dozen employees, for creating a Facebook pro Facebook
Speaker 1: group page to talk about something or other. Ones of
Speaker 1: a lot of sports ones. There are a lot of
Speaker 1: politician ones. There's the entire there's an entire sub genre
Speaker 1: for teachers. Because of course, teachers, you know, they're held
Speaker 1: to a very specific kind of standard and should they
Speaker 1: have anything in their social media profiles that is somewhat
Speaker 1: uh below that standard. They could suffer for it, and
Speaker 1: there's not a whole lot of sympathy offered to them
Speaker 1: from most school boards, I would say, and uh oh.
Speaker 1: And then there's the guy from best Buy who was
Speaker 1: fired and then rehired by best Buy for creating the
Speaker 1: YouTube video of the cartoon where it's the customer who
Speaker 1: comes in wanting to buy an iPhone and the the
Speaker 1: best Buy representative is trying to convince the customer that
Speaker 1: the EVO is a superior product. That was the one
Speaker 1: that kind of launched all the the that that series
Speaker 1: of videos of all the cartoons with the robotic voices
Speaker 1: that wanted an iPhone. You know that kind of thing,
Speaker 1: I want an iPhone? Yes, exactly that video. There's that
Speaker 1: guy too. So this does span things well beyond Twitter
Speaker 1: and Facebook. Guys, if you have any favorite stories, or
Speaker 1: if you have a story of what happened to you
Speaker 1: or to maybe someone you know who perhaps used Twitter
Speaker 1: or Facebook in a moment of absent mindedness, let's say,
Speaker 1: and you want to share it. First of all, keep
Speaker 1: it clean, folks, but you can let us know on
Speaker 1: Facebook or Twitter are handle there is text stuff h
Speaker 1: s W. Or you can shoot us an email That
Speaker 1: address is tech stuff at how stuff works dot com,
Speaker 1: and Chris and I will talk to you again, hopefully
Speaker 1: when we think about it first really soon. For more
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
Speaker 1: works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
Speaker 1: on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
Speaker 1: our homepage. The house stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.
Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes, brought to you by the
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