Another Twit – terring Politician

Twitter has become a requisite way for millions of people to share their experiences during global events such as the election of Barack Obama or the plane crash in the Hudson River. It now seems Twitter can be used to see what representatives of the U.S. Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence are getting up to. Politicians being transparent? It must be a mistake.

It wasn’t. Biz Stone, one of Twitter's co-founders, explained that Twitter is not just about “What are you doing?' but about what everyone else is doing. Twitter is about finding out what is going on out there right now in real time”. This is exactly what the U.S. Government found out when Pete Hoekstra, who represents the Second Congressional District of Michigan, tweeted his arrival in Baghdad via his BlackBerry. Consequently he let over 2000 of his followers know the whereabouts of the supposedly secret congressional visit to Iraq… oh, and in addition made a mockery of U.S. security.
 

Not only did Hoekstra reveal the existence of the delegations’ trip, but he also included details about their itinerary in three more updates that he posted on his Twitter page.

All this coming from someone who is descried as “responsible for providing Congressional oversight as the United States battles a global war on terror and Congress works to modernize and reform the U.S. Intelligence Community”. The content Hoekstra put out there could have been seriously damaging to not only himself, “but also the people tasked with protecting him”, said Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Web security firm Sophos.

Reputation and security often go hand in hand. Hoekstra not only potentially caused a major security breach, but he also tarnished the reputation, in a political context, of all Republican’s and the United States as a whole, all at the hand of the online social media platform – Twitter.

Hoekstra’s own reputation can be viewed from two different angles. First up, he went against standard Pentagon policy, which has resulted in the Defense Department Officials reviewing how they communicate those restrictions to lawmakers. However, his following on Twitter has increased by approximately 1, 500 people since the incident occurred. Online users seem to like what Hoekstra calls transparency, but what online users may call incompetent leaks.

These Social Media / next generation technologies have propelled connectivity into warp drive, increasing the fragility of every business, politician and plumber’s online reputation – check out Homemark and the Twitter bashing they received. Breaking news, or in this case commentary which demonstrates lack of guile and senseless simplicity, is spread the second it is published through Twitter. Effectively pinging the entire pack of followers in an immersed world of updated happenings.

A useful lesson can be learnt here. As the line between one’s personal and professional lives blurs at the hands of Social Media technologies, the content of your tweets can take on a whole new meaning.

You might want to make it clear who you represent and why you're on Twitter. Some users put messages on their Twitter background noting that the opinions expressed in their tweets do not reflect those of their company.

There's a real difficulty here for people who are employed by companies, as they to some extent are always a representative of that company. When using Twitter it’s extremely difficult to divorce yourself from that fact. You need to figure out where you can draw the line. It’s finding that line which can be problem.
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