Amanda takes us through a story that leads us into a conversation about the perils of social media on our latest episode of Smirk, Crossing The Line.
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Want to read Amanda’s story “Crossing The Line” in full? Think you can identify the moral or theme for this episode? Read it below, and then take a listen to the podcast.
Crossing The Line
Samantha recently celebrated her fourth year at her business organization, which assists businesses with their growth and development. She is active in her community, was formerly a college professor, and is great at her job. The clients she serves all vary in the needs they have.
Last week, while off work, she made a Facebook post that only her friends list could see. The post shared an article which criticized one of the businesses Samantha represented in the past. She shared the post with additional comments, seemingly siding with the ethical concerns in the article, but not out right slanting the business or the specifics.
While Samantha only shared it with her friends list, her friends list also includes fellow colleagues. When her colleague, Michael, noticed that another business owner Samantha represents commented on it concerned about her loyalty, Michael brought it up to another member on their team, Joe. Concerned as to the perception of their employer now, Michael and Joe went to their supervisor and told them of this Facebook post. About the same time, Samantha shared a Facebook message from the business owner that stated they were disappointed in Samantha sharing that post and they had expected something different.
The message was responded to with guidance from Samantha’s supervisor, and the team had to work together on the PR from the incident. Samantha was not reprimanded for this since her employer’s social media policy is related to ridicule of the company and on-duty usage, but given that it was an article on a client, Samantha was asked to not post controversial things of this nature going forward.