“Be careful what you post on twitter” is a warning often given to those that work for high profile places such as The BBC, you never know when your tweet written in anger will come back to bite you on the bum. There have been a few high profile cases where something someone has said has embarrassed them later (The recent motorist and their seemingly boasting of knocking a cyclist) , gotten them fired or forced resignations(The “youth Police Commissioner”) lead to Civil legal cases (even not explicitly accusing someone but just putting *innocent face* after an otherwise harmless question can get you done for libel apparently) and even land you in prison (The frustrated traveller who joked they would blow up the airport if their plane didn’t board soon).
It’s a bit of a mind field to say the least.
And that’s just when you tweet something you shouldn’t. You see Twitter is a public platform. Tweets are there for everyone to see, take and use out of context. Completely innocent tweets can be hijacked and used against you. Even worse, tweets by someone else can. Something you have absolutely no control over.
And sometimes, every so often, it might embroil you in a tabloid scandal.
A few months back I attended the BBC Television centre staff closing party. It was a fun evening (despite the fact that I had a stonking cold, was on water the whole night and left early). We enjoyed the nibbles, chatted, had a bit of a dance and even got our photo taken with Scott Mills who was there to DJ. Genuinely a fun but uneventful evening, I wouldn’t say anything out of the ordinary happened.
I went home. Enjoyed my weekend. Started to get over my cold. Woke up on Monday morning and, as I often do, reached for my phone to have a quick look at twitter before getting out of bed.
While scrolling down twitter I see a headline “British Bonking Corporation” with a link to an article in the Daily Mirror. “ooo wonder what’s been going on” I thought., clicking on the link.
Reading the article I discovered that at that party I had been at there had, allegedly, been various frisky attendees who had snuck off to the abandoned offices for a quick bit of fun. Chuckling to myself I was thinking “Wow, I didn’t notice any of this going on” while continuing to scroll down. It was all very amusing.
Then I reached a photo.
The photo of me, my friends and Scott Mills posing for the camera. The photo that another friend had taken on their phone, presumably posted to twitter and now was included in an article about BBC staff sneaking off for some Bonking fun.
It’s not often that my mouth is literally hung open in shock but this was one of them times.
There were a couple of other pictures in the article but just crowd shots of the dance floor. Ours was the only photo of people looking to the camera. If you were just glancing at the article you might be forgiven for assuming that we were the “Bonkers” from the headline. (which we weren’t…. just in case that still needed clarifying)
What I did do first was text my wife. She doesn’t read the Mirror as far as I know, but just in case I wanted to guard agasint castration and assure her the Headline was nothing to do with me. Next I sent tweets to everyone else in the photo, all who were equally shocked and amused.
At this point I only knew that it was online, so on the way to work I bought a copy of the paper…..
Only a whole page spread on page 9!!!!
I then, am not ashamed to say, bought three more copies. (Well, It IS probably the only Time I’ll get in a national newspaper)
Finally I tentatively started showing people in my office to gauge reaction. To my relief everyone found it funny and reassured me I shouldn’t worry.
It was at this point I felt a bit more free to share the hilarity with friends on Facebook and fully embrace the amusement of it all. We even started refering to it as "Bonkgate"
But it is a great example of how twitter posts can be used in ways you wouldn’t have intended. There was nothing we could really do about it. It was an innocent picture posted to twitter by someone else and just taken by a tabloid to put with a headline we had nothing to do with.
Does that mean we should all abandon twitter and forbid our friends of posting photos of us? I don’t think so. I love twitter and have found it very useful, paticually in the media industry for networking, finding jobs and getting advice.
Just be wary, when your friends are taking pictures, not do anything that might embarrass you later and if you do end up, innocently, in an amusing tabloid scandal try and embrace the funny side of it. It makes a great anecdote for parties.
