Scottyhons

Social media scandals

We all know about the Anthony Weiner scandal on Twitter, where he decided to tweet out photos of his surname-namesake to some willing recipients. The amount of jokes that essentially write themselves are probably in the tens of thousands at this point, and to date, Andy Borowitz of the @BorowitzReport probably has the best ones, including this gem:

    “It is time for these babyish Weiner jokes to stop,” says Weiner spokesman Hugh G. Rection. http://bit.ly/lvf96a

Kidding aside, though, I’m worried about how others are reacting.  I heard last night on the news that politicians are looking at the incident as a reason to ‘review the ways in which social media is used, and adjust policies accordingly.’

Really? Here, I’ll save you the trouble of having to review your policies and boil it down to new rules that should be in place:

Rule #1: don’t tweet out pictures of your package.

That’s basically it.

Twitter is meant to be a transparent way to effectively connect with people who you’re interested in and who are interested in you. It only works when you allow people to be themselves, to be human, and to express their opinions.  The only real ‘policy’ you need to have in place is common sense, and if you don’t have that, well, you definitely shouldn’t be in office, nor should you expect your celebrity to grow.

It’s my hope that people will see this as an isolated incident rather than spinning it as a reason for people in the public eye to not use twitter or facebook in transparent and  ‘human’ ways.

So by all means, celebs & public officials, keep telling us what’s on your mind.  Just don’t show us what’s in your pants.