The Blame Game

Over the years, there has been many articles written about how certain Social Networks were causes for certain events.

Below are a few examples:

• Mashable writes about how Facebook Can Get You Fired, Dumped, And Yes, Evicted
• Gawker explains how a bank intern gets fired because of Facebook.
• Another story of getting fired from Facebook is from Switched, a teen calls job “boring”
• Most recently, the famous story about how a would-be cisco employee would of got hired except Twitter got him fired.
• Americanshelflife talks about how she got dumped because of Facebook

Now noticed, all the articles have one thing in common and that is doing the blame game.  It seems like placing the blame of the bad news on the Social Network is more shocking than comparing it to a normal event without Social Media involved.

It appears with the new hype and phenomenon of Social Media taking place that these stories get hyped due to having the event take place on Social Media.  This maybe the case, but they are still all missing the main point and that’s being accountable for their own actions.

Social Media Are Just Communication Tools and Mediums

Twitter, Myspace and Facebook are just Social Networks.  They are communication tools that we use on a daily basis.  Although these are great sources for communication, they are just that and doesn’t force us to do anything  against our will.

If you ever heard the saying….

“Computers don’t make errors, people make errors”

“Guns don’t kill people, people kill people”

These sayings imply that to not blame the tools but to blame the users.

Be Accountable For Your Actions

There is a great movement and book out there if you haven’t heard it, it’s called QBQ – The Question Behind The Question and Personal Accountability.

That’s what this is all about, these users on these Social Networks need to stop blaming Social Media for their actions and take personal accountability for what they did.

It’s not Facebook’s fault that the users got fire for posting incriminating information…..

It’s not Twitters fault for displaying a users Tweet on his careless opinion about his future employer…

It’s not Myspace’s fault that you got dumped……

Let’s look at the cold hard facts.  These users are all soley responsible for their actions and just because they have the ability to showcase their information to the world they should have the common sense to be more careful in what they put out there on the net.

Just because you entertained the idea that you will never get caught because it’s Social Media, doesn’t make it right.  If you published your hatred opinion in a book instead of Facebook, don’t think you will not fall under the same consequences.  Doing something wrong is doing something wrong regardless if you get caught or not.

Bottom line is that Social Media is not to blame….the blame is upon yourself…take personal accountability for your actions and next time make better judgement calls before you go out and do something you will regret.

Post from: Social Media Vision

Don’t Blame Twitter, Myspace or Facebook; Blame Yourself