Such an interesting story in today’s Globe and Mail newspaper about a young British police liaison who ‘tweeted’ herself out of a job (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/teen-uk-police-commissioner-tweets-herself-out-of-a-job/article10936640/)
Apparently the newly created Crime Commissioner decided that a good way to bridge the gap between teenagers and police would be to hire a youth commissioner to act as liaison. After what was supposed to be a stringent recruitment process, Paris Brown was hired. Great idea right? You want to engage youth, solicit the assistance of someone young. Makes sense to me.
Except that no one did a check of Paris Brown’s social media presence. Three days after her appointment, a slew of racist, homophobic tweets were discovered to have been made by Paris Brown, including some which boasted of her drinking and drug use. Seems she doesn’t like people whose first language is not English either. Oops.
Interesting that the Crime Commissioner (Ann Barnes by the way), initially defended this young 17 year old woman. She claimed to know she was “not recruiting an angel….not recruiting a police officer….was recruiting a young person, warts and all.” She went on to say that someone’s future should not be “determined by what they wrote on social-networking sites between the ages of 14 and 16….”
Well, if you are hiring a more mature, older person whose adult record was strong, who had good work experience, has acted professionally, who has strong professional references and whose social media presence was good for many, many years….that might be one thing. But when you are hiring a 17 year old, you only have the last few years. Sure, we all might make mistakes when we were teenagers…but we often have years to make up for those transgressions and to set ourselves on the right path. When you are hiring a 17 year old, you have to look at the last few years…..it’s all you’ve got.
The long and short of it….social media is still in its infancy and people are still finding their way. As I tell my sons and my students….don’t broadcast ANYTHING you don’t want your parents to see. I tell my clients to never broadcast anything you don’t want your spouse, your children or your CEO to see. Think before you hit ‘send’…..you can’t take it back!
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