Mark Evans over on Mark Evans Tech talks about people needing to put some serious filters on their own social networking. While in general social networking amongst our friends can look like a really bad edition of the Jerry Springer Show (and even Jerry might be offended by some of the stuff out there), there is always someone out there talking about stuff that probably should be kept off the social networks.

While there is a certain amount of amusement with this, especially when it is used right to facilitate conversations, far too many people are getting fired for what they are doing on social networks, because we cannot seem to figure out when to keep quiet. One of the many reasons not to friend your boss, there is always something on the network now that will eventually get someone in trouble for something. Earlier I talked about the top 10 reasons not to friend your boss, this holds true and will continue to hold true until we develop a better sense of what can and cannot be said online when we are living in the highly connected world that we live in. You never know who is listening or how they will take it.

Many people seem to have a complete lack of personal digital filters. There doesn’t seem to be a “pause” button before they hit the “submit” or “enter” button. Whether it’s a blog post, Facebook update or tweet, these unfiltered thoughts are propelled into the digital ether with nary a thought of their impact. A high-profile case in point is Twitter lead developer Alex Payne, who wrote critical review of his two years in San Francisco, describing it “dirty”, “filthy” and “disgusting”. Payne’s assessment may, in fact, be accurate and he has the right to criticize San Francisco but his post makes me wonder about how there could be an “up side” to making a public proclamation. Source: Mark Evans

And this is not an isolated case, there are others, like the person fired for what they spoke on Facebook calling their boss a wanker, and it just keeps on going.

If you are living a highly connected life, like I do, where you have friended your boss, where you are highly connected to your co-workers, and you spend time with them socially, it really is up to you to ensure that you are going to always reflect on what you say before you say it. If you need to vent, find something that is not connected if you have to do it online, keep yourself anonymous and use pseudonyms, there are so many ways you can still vent the way you need to, without involving everyone else in the process. There are some people who restrict a secondary profile to a very small set of trusted people to make sure that they do not get sidelined by something that they state.

The problem with this is that social networking is aimed just at that, we update our timelines with information and those timelines are shared. There is always something, but if you have to go online to vent, use all the anonymity tools that you can use, or even better, go back to paper and pencil and start keeping your journal there. Social networking is great, but you have to use it wisely.

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• It's a No Filter Digital Culture (markevanstech.com)
• Is it any wonder companies ban social networks? (accmanpro.com)
• To friend, or not to friend: That is the workplace question (seattlepi.com)
• A Twitter Engineer's Epic Diss of 'Disgusting' San Francisco (gawker.com)

(Cross-posted @ IT Toolbox)