Twitter and the tweeting twits who use it : Mon Jan 30, 2012 9:41 am  

What is it that people of power and influence do not get about publicly accessed social networking sites? Eirian Walsh-Atkins, head of constitutional policy at the Cabinet Office and charged with sorting policy regarding lobbying, stood down on Friday after tweeting 'I wish unlock Democracy would die. I am prepared to help it along.' By "stood down", all that means is she ain't got the sack, she's been moved sideways for a while, until the furore calms down. When The Independent phoned her for clarification, she responded with "I don't like them," and hung up. Tweeting by civil servants may not be a sackable offence but being stupid as she has been should surely be an incentive for the civil service to offer her the opportunity to spend more time on her amateur dramatics.

What is it that people of power and influence do not get about publicly accessed social networking sites? Eirian Walsh-Atkins, head of constitutional policy at the Cabinet Office and charged with sorting policy regarding lobbying, stood down on Friday after tweeting 'I wish unlock Democracy would die. I am prepared to help it along.' By "stood down", all that means is she ain't got the sack, she's been moved sideways for a while, until the furore calms down. When The Independent phoned her for clarification, she responded with "I don't like them," and hung up. Tweeting by civil servants may not be a sackable offence but being stupid as she has been should surely be an incentive for the civil service to offer her the opportunity to spend more time on her amateur dramatics.

Re: Twitter and the tweeting twits who use it : Mon Jan 30, 2012 12:41 pm  

The only reason I post on here during the day is because my employer doesn't know the user name

I don't Facebook or Tweet or even update my blog during working hours because they all know who I am on those sites, indeed most of our staff are in the company workgroup, you'd need to be crazy to be sat at your desk tweeting during working hours and expect the MD not to be able trace you.

Re: Twitter and the tweeting twits who use it : Mon Jan 30, 2012 1:49 pm  

I've had to go to the extent of having two FB accounts so I can post freely about those things that perhaps I shouldn't. We've all recieved a heads up about FB behaviour and that we could get sacked quite easily if we got it wrong.

Re: Twitter and the tweeting twits who use it : Mon Jan 30, 2012 2:03 pm  

The layers immediately above me are considerably more cynical than I am. This helps enormously.

Re: Twitter and the tweeting twits who use it : Mon Jan 30, 2012 4:54 pm  

I agree with cod'ead here, so many people really cause problems for themselves with Twitter.

An issue I have seen with the youngish generation of fairly recent graduates, is that those that have landed reasonably good jobs, seem very keen to advertise this on their Twitter 'bio'.

Obviously with the civil service, it is an issue if you then start tweeting political views etc, but also whatever employer you work for once you have identified yourself with that employer, if you want to use Twitter to whinge about your life, work or launch a load of expletives like people often do on Twitter, it just paints your employer in a bad light.

Re: Twitter and the tweeting twits who use it : Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:58 pm  

Where I volunteer Twitter use is encouraged because it publicises the organisation. However I have been removed from an office before because the people there found my YouTube work offensive.

I think you’ve just got to be careful where you put your thoughts out. I’ve privatised most of my YouTube videos so I don’t give anyone an excuse to get rid of me..

Re: Twitter and the tweeting twits who use it : Mon Jan 30, 2012 7:59 pm  

Damo-Leeds wrote:

Where I volunteer Twitter use is encouraged because it publicises the organisation. However I have been removed from an office before because the people there found my YouTube work offensive.

Was that the one of you on your trampoline in your front garden when you trackie bottoms fell down ?

Re: Twitter and the tweeting twits who use it : Mon Jan 30, 2012 8:02 pm  

McLaren_Field wrote:

Was that the one of you on your trampoline in your front garden when you trackie bottoms fell down ?

It was a song about a certain user on here (Gav's Song) and a song about playing Bingo on an elevator.

Re: Twitter and the tweeting twits who use it : Mon Jan 30, 2012 8:05 pm  

McDonald's epic FAIL

McDonald's epic FAIL

Re: Twitter and the tweeting twits who use it : Mon Jan 30, 2012 8:49 pm  

cod'ead wrote: McDonald's epic FAIL This was a delight - and I personally enjoyed tweeting about it.

cod'ead wrote: McDonald's epic FAIL This was a delight - and I personally enjoyed tweeting about it.