Apr
2010
Tweets – the 21st century’s dodgy negatives
The demise of (former) Labour PPC Stuart MacLennan today has been both very rapid and very public, reflecting two of the characteristics that set social media apart from ‘traditional’ media.
It is also a reminder of one of the most fundamental aspects of Twitter – and one that applies to the corporate world as well as the political – once your tweet is posted, it can never be taken back.
In general elections past, dodgy pictures, remarks or the financial dealings of inexperienced candidates were among the indiscretions that came back to haunt them; we can now add tweets to that list.
An ugly aspect of any general election campaign (but one that will never go away) is that as soon as the starting gun is fired (if not before), each party will trawl through the past of their opponents, looking for any dirt that they can use against them.
Even as I write this, you can be sure that the Twitter accounts of dozens of candidates will be being trawled through. Is Stuart MacLennan the only candidate who has ever posted anything regrettable on Twitter? Or Facebook for that matter? Highly unlikely…
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