Another day, another blunder: social media, blogging and reputational optics

Zach loves red ties.

My last blog post discussed the the dangers that social media can pose to organizations when millennials mess up. Today a homegrown example appeared, with the media discovering a bizarre blog entry by written by Max Naylor attacking Zach Paikin over internal differences within the youth wing of the Liberal Party of Canada. This situation serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers that social media presents to reputations of organizations and individuals. The actions of a renegade individual can take centre stage if an organization lacks the appropriate safeguards and social media policies governing conduct. 

So does Max.

What started as a disagreement over politics between friends morphed into a very damaging national story. Mothers have gotten involved, disparaging tweets have been exchanged and anyone remotely connected to the story has been left with egg on their face. The conduct has not only been damaging to the fractured political party they claim membership in, but also to their individual reputations. This sort of behaviour shouldn't be tolerated in any organization, be it political, corporate or charitable as it shuts down communication and represents a public relations disaster.

Young people should realize that what they write online will probably be permanent and might impact on future opportunities. Public attacks can seem like a good way to score some cheap political points, but in the long-run what good will come from having embarrassing information sitting a Google search away from potential employers, mates or business contacts? It pays to keep a clean profile, avoid online bickering and keep the language of comments akin to that of Disney films. Anything less might leave a disturbing trail that will be difficult to clean up and hard to explain away as a product of youthful indiscretion. Simply, the polity doesn't care about internal machinations of the junior Machiavelli league and will only be alienated through the public airing of dirty laundry.