Stakes raised in social media gamble

The stakes seem to have risen in what can happen when you gamble with social media
and lose.
This week a newspaper editor has been stood down over insensitive comments, a hockey
player faces the sack over lewd photos and a swimming star lost her car over an
offensive slur.
Where was the scene of their crimes?
The world's two biggest social media domains, Twitter and Facebook.
If it wasn't evident before then watching Stephanie Rice break down in tears and beg
for forgiveness at a painful press conference showed that very little is now private
on social media.
The 22-year-old Olympic gold medallist had been watching the Wallabies beat the
Springboks with a little too much exuberance, jumping on Twitter to declare,
unwisely, "Suck on that faggots".
One of Rice's sponsors, Jaguar Australia, took back the Jag XF they had given her
and end ties, while the Seven Network opted out of renewing a contract with her
reportedly worth $800,000.
Fellow Olympian, Australian Matildas soccer player Lisa De Vanna, had her own social
media slip-up when a 13-year-old fan went to Facebook to find out more about her
idol.
However, what the fan didn't expect to see was explicit photos of 25-year-old De
Vanna simulating sexual acts.
The fan's mother was mortified the hockey player had overlooked her Facebook privacy
settings and allowed images such as De Vanna posing with a blow-up penis to be
viewed by anyway.
Football Federation Australia ordered her to take down the images and are
considering whether she will be disciplined further.
Both Rice's and De Vanna's social networking faux pas sent journalists into a frenzy
and forced the two to make public apologies to the media.
Yet those who take the news and splash it across their pages are not immune to
falling for Twitter and Facebook's false sense of privacy.
Regional NSW newspaper editor Matt Nicholls of the Glen Innes Examiner was stood
down by his publisher when he made a quip on Facebook about the death of a young
policeman.
"There's nothing better than a death to lift circulation," the 23-year-old wrote on
his Facebook page.
Mr Nicholls further commented that the Glen Innes Examiner would "make the most" of
the tragedy in which the 26-year-old officer was shot dead during a drug raid in
southwestern Sydney on Wednesday evening.
The reactions to these ill-considered comments on what some deem as private media
and the ramifications for the culprits show there's no such thing as privacy on
social networks.
Rice could have easily said her offensive comment in a television interview and the
reaction wouldn't have been much different.
The financial losses to this week's three biggest social media losers demonstrate
that Twitter and Facebook should now be considered just as public as a letter to the
editor or a statement to the press.
It is a wise word of warning to those with even the smallest public profile, if you
don't want something on the front page of tomorrow's newspaper, don't put it on the
internet.
As Rice said: "I've learned a huge lesson that you just have to be so careful with
what you're saying and think before you say.
"Because what happens is out there for everyone to read and I guess everyone's
entitled to their own opinion of what they read."