It seems that not a week goes by without someone getting themselves into trouble due to their misuse of social media. Just the other week a barrister was disbarred for sending insulting tweets about the barrister on the opposing side of the case he was acting in. He had been tweeting from an anonymous twitter account, @GeekLawyer, but was later identified as the author of the messages. The chairman of the Bar Standards Board decided that the tweets brought the profession into disrepute and this led to the decision that he should be struck off. This is just one recent example of someone getting into difficulty as a result of messages posted on Twitter.

A survey in January of 2,000 internet users shines a light on why so many faux pas are committed via social media. A quarter of those interviewed admitted writing personal remarks to someone online that they would not say to their face. Prof Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford and a behaviour expert has a theory of why this is the case. He blames the absence of the “checks and balances” found in everyday face-to-face communication for the trend of posting comments online that people later regret. Just last week four young men found themselves at the centre of a media uproar after the offensive emails they had been sending went viral. Emails they undoubtedly now regret sending.

It seems normal checks and balances are not always used with social media at work either. Last year a user of the Chrysler twitter account posted a tweet stating no-one in Detroit knows how to drive, with an added expletive that I’ve not included here! It was posted by an employee of the communications company employed by Chrysler who obviously hadn’t considered their “Imported from Detroit” slogan when he tweeted it.

As social media becomes an important part of our communication people must learn to use it with the common sense they apply to face to face or more formal methods of communication. Serious consideration must be given to all public and private messages sent via social media, be it through personal or work accounts. Most importantly, companies that use social media must have a clear policy in place for how it should be used and ensure that employees know how serious it can be if offensive or inappropriate messages are sent via social media.

Social media has developed as a method of quick and informal correspondence and, as long as people remember to use it with the same social etiquette you would when talking to someone in person, it will continue to be a valuable means of communication.