Be Careful What You Tweet!
There is amazing power in the 140 character micro-blog posts that we have come to know as tweets. These tweets have demonstrated the power to get people fired, caught cheating, NFL players fined, job offers cancelled with a “Thanks but No Thanks!” and countless other negative outcomes. These negative outcomes were all outside the purview of the Twitter user’s original intent.
In my humble opinion, there should be some thought that goes into each and every tweet, because once you hit post, those tweets find themselves in the Twitterworld forever. The delete option for your tweets is almost as comical as the rescinding of an e-mail– it doesn’t work. The moral of the story is Be Careful What You Tweet.
Anyone can do anything with your tweets and even without your permission. I see tweets all the time that fall into the category of what I call questionable. I imagine that most of these people wouldn’t want their mother, pastor, boss or children reading some of their tweets. Everyone should have their own internal tweet filter, that aligns with who they are. My filter is simply asking this question “Is what I’m about to tweet disrespectful to God, My Family or My Role as a Pastor?”
A couple of weeks ago I found out that one of my tweets was featured in a front page story of one of our local newspapers. The front page story titled “Gimme That High Tech Religion” and the featured article was “Metro churches turn to technology to spread the good word.” The scary thing is the tweet that was featured had been sent almost a month before the article was featured. I didn’t have any idea the tweet was going to be used. The article by @malenalott was well written and the featured tweet was very positive, of course it was remember the filter that I use for every tweet. Here is the tweet: “Just finished talkin w/ a guy having some marriage problems. I digg providing tools & steps: God, Communication, Comittment, Date Nights…”
Consider using the GAP filter for your tweets. That doesn’t mean put on GAP clothing before you tweet, but rather ask this question: “Is my tweet Genuine, Accurate and Positive?” The bottom line is Be Careful What Tweet, it may end up on the front page of a newspaper, fired, under investigation or worse. It could lead to death, here is a story of how a persons Twitter Message Led to Murder.
Be Careful What You Tweet!
P.S. The Library of Congress archives all of your tweets.
Do you think about the repercussions of what you say online? Should your tweets be fair game? Do you use any sort of mental filter before you tweet?
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