Facebook, Twitter users too quick to press 'send'

30/09/2009 10:02:00

But in sharing information and posting pictures on social networking sites like Facebook, or texting salacious messages – known as ‘sexts’ – many are pressing ‘send’ too quickly.

Jane Walker is a director at a recruitment company and runs into countless examples of people who lose their jobs – or can not even get jobs – because of what they have posted online.

“They’ll phone in sick, and information about what they were doing was on Facebook – which was then relayed to the Human Resources Manager,” she says.

The web does not just land people in trouble with their boss – it can also put people into compromising positions.

The increasing trend of using mobile phones to take compromising or revealing photos, which are then sent to friends, is referred to as sexy texting, or ‘sexting’.

“Typically the calls we get are, ‘I’ve taken an image with a girlfriend or boyfriend, we’ve separated now and it’s public – how do I get it back?’” says Martin Cocker of Netsafe.

“The answer is there is not way to recover those files.”

It is a scary worldwide trend – a recent study in the US showed that 20 percent of teens have ‘sexted’.

Tweeting can also turn you into a twit. Social networking site Twitter contains many examples of what is commonly referred to as ‘tweet rage’.

Magazine editor Duncan Greive experienced this after posting a review of a track by New Zealand hip hop artist Scribe.

“I posted up the review and he just went mental,” he says.

“We got on real well when I interviewed him a few years ago, then he direct messaged me some threats [via Twitter] and we went back and forth – it all got a bit heated,” he says.

Scribe tweeted back nine times, with comments like:

“Let’s be real, if there were rules they would hire critics with qualifications or at least someone with some talent.”

And:

“Your opinion doesn’t mean that much. It is worth a punch in the face or a chokehold though.”

Jovial or serious – the internet is forever, and everything online tends to have a ripple effect.

Source: 3 News

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