Mistakes magnified

Apparently one major effect of Facebook is that it enables non-collegiates to embarrass themselves or their peers to wider audiences, with greater ease.

An education reporter at the Vancouver Sun in Canada reported on a small Facebook-aided brouhaha in the Maple Ridge-Pitt Meadows school district. For some reason, one of the school trustees rested his head on his arms during a district parent advisory council meeting. The vice chair of the council took a photo, posted it on Facebook, and titled it: “Paperless board meeting, $25,000. Trustee asleep … priceless.” The school board put out a release later, claiming that the board member was not asleep at the meeting.

You’ve got to wonder about two things here – the common sense (or lack thereof) a council vice chair who posts an unflattering photo of a colleague on a widely popular social networking site and the wisdom of the school board, which increased the visibility of the posting by issuing a news release.

The Herald Sun, “Australia’s biggest selling daily newspaper” (so they say), ran a story on October 10th about a newsreader at the 3AW radio station who failed to show up on time to read the news. She told management that she had ‘computer problems’ but when the IT dept. investigated they found that she was using Facebook at the time.

I mentioned in a posting two weeks ago about the English cad who left his wife for an old flame who he reunited with on Facebook. The ex-wife discovered Facebook’s role in the sorry saga by reading a Wall posting between her ex and the old/new lover. Her ex is a quite sloppy and insensitive fellow, if you ask me.

In late September Salon.com posted a long article entitled “Old people Facebook disasters.” In the article Michael Martin shares a number of tales that make you want to wince on behalf of the subjects. In one a 30-year-old filmmaker went to delete a potty- humor video that someone else posted on her Wall. She accidentally hit ‘Forward’ instead and Facebook sent the video to all her Facebook friends. Ouch!

In another story a 37 year old mom reacted quickly to a news story about then new VP nominee Sarah Palin and her pregnant daughter, posting in her status update that she “feel less of a woman that I have never slept with a Levi or a hockey player.” It occurred to her afterwards that all her Friends, including her 13-year-old nephew, could see her snarky comment.

Why are all these seemingly sensible people, with important responsibilities, committing such glaring gaffes on Facebook?

I surmise that for some, it may simply be a lack of familiarity with the features of the service and what they really do. Others may be careless, no matter what communication medium they use. For some, though, the explanation may be youth-envy. As Salon.com’s Martin explains: “Starved of the sociosexual drama of their teens and 20’s, people over 30 are eager to join the confessional zeitgist and thus become careless.” I think Martin makes a good point.