Someone posted an item on Twitter and has now been sacked.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bristol-30700872
Is this sane?
Two issues:
- He’s (frankly) stupid enough to make such a crass joke in public. It’s not funny, and there have been previous issues with Twitter posts (Nottingham airport) being taken far far too seriously.
- His employer takes his Twitter post so seriously that it sees fit to terminate his employment. I’m surprised this is legal.
What’s my point? I guess the problem for me is that we’ve entered a period where our tiniest online utterances can haunt us forever. We’re now broadcasting globally, with no option to remove the article, however much we might regret it afterwards.
I reckon I’m lucky, I grew up with this happening, and I now have the wisdom not to say things I’ll eternally regret (at least online, and attributable to me). I’ll admit to have posted things I might now regret should they be traced to me, but these are not tied to any of my long-lasting online personae, so I hope I’m safe…