There have been many unfortunate instances where Tweeted information has created negative consequences for the user. Here are a few interesting examples:
Several London Olympians learned the hazards of Twitter in the 2012 Olympic games. Two athletes were removed from their countries’ teams because of a Tweet. The Switzerland Olympic Committee sent home one of their soccer players for a racist statement posted on his account. One day after his team lost to South Korea, he tweeted, “I want to beat up all South Koreans! Bunch of mentally handicapped retards!”
The second athlete, a Greek hurdler, got dismissed after a comment people viewed as racist: “So many Africans in Greece…at least West Nile mosquitoes will eat homemade food.”
Even an American hurdler made a controversial statement on Twitter: “USA Men’s Archery lost the gold medal to Italy but that’s OK, we are Americans…When’s da Gun shooting competition? [sic]” This comment was made not long after the mass shooting in Aurora, CO.
A recent job applicant at Cisco was offered a high-paying position with their company. The applicant then posted on Twitter the following: “Cisco just offered me a job! Now I have to weigh the utility of a fatty paycheck against the daily commute to San Jose and hating the work.”
Since Cisco is a tech company, they follow posts about their company on Twitter. To make matters worse, someone from Cisco saw her post and responded. It spread across Twitter like wildfire to the point that someone traced her Twitter account, identified her, and “outed” her. She was dubbed on the net “Cisco Fatty.” One would assume that she did not get the job.
Next, the Aflac duck lost his voice when an AFLAC employee tweeted “Japan called me. They said ‘maybe those jokes are a hit in the U.S., but over here, they’re all sinking.’ ” Aflac fired him almost immediately.
On a trip to Memphis to meet with FedEx, a PR representative posted a less-than-complimentary comment about the city. Somebody at FedEx saw it, took it personally, sent it around, and started a big slap-fight that culminated in a public apology from the employee.
On the investigative side, we needed to locate an important witness. We found his Twitter account online, read his Tweets, and learned where he lived, where he worked, his wife’s nickname, and his age. We were then able to narrow down the possibilities from our databases to an exact match, and the attorney was able to get him served.
In another case, we were able to place all of a subject’s tweets into an Excel spreadsheet. This allowed us to examine the subject’s behavior and comments at the time of an alleged incident and to trace the subject’s steps through a recent overseas trip. We also identified close friends and family members we were previously unaware of, adding to a growing list of potential witnesses.
The moral of these stories is to STOP thinking that your Tweets are private. Don’t put anything in an electronic communication, of any kind, in any format, if there is anyone you don’t want reading it!
For a thorough investigation call the experienced legal investigators at Complete Legal Investigations, Inc. at 561-687-8381.