Public Remarks

Suppose for a moment that you had been arrested, tried, and ultimately convicted for driving while under the influence, and were awaiting sentencing for this crime. If the court is satisfied that you are properly contrite and will never take such a stupid, risky action again, there’s a good chance that you might be let off with two years probation and a suspended license; you would almost certainly avoid any serious jail time. On the other hand, if the court believes that you are not sorry for what you’ve done or even that you are not taking the proceedings seriously enough, you could easily receive two years in prison. If that were the case, would you post pictures of yourself partying and drinking, possibly dressed up in costume as a prisoner, in a public place? Where anybody, including the judge and the prosecutor, could see you behaving like an unrepentant alcoholic idiot?

There was a very interesting article being reported on the Associated Press wire today about a series of cases in which the defendants did just that. Of course, the public place in all of these cases wasn’t a bulletin board at the supermarket, or a classified ad in the local paper. Rather, these people placed these possibly damaging photographs of themselves on the Internet networking sites, Facebook and MySpace. In all of the cases referenced, the intent was innocent enough: the pictures weren’t compromising or pornographic; the people in them weren’t doing anything more illegal than under-age drinking (and generally not even that). These were just people sharing pictures of themselves with family and friends; they clearly didn’t expect to have anyone beyond that small circle of acquaintance see these pictures. But they forgot one of the most important properties of the Internet…

When you post information, including pictures, to any public web site, you have to assume that anyone who really wants to can access that information, and that not all of those who do are going to mean well toward you. Posting pictures of yourself behaving in anything other than a properly contrite and penitent manner while you are awaiting sentencing for a crime is completely idiotic; refusing to take down such pictures after being advised to do so by your attorney is so far beyond asinine that I can’t even think of a bad metaphor to explain how stupid it is. These pictures had no bearing on the guilt or innocence of the people who posted them, and should not have affected the sentence they were given, but a factor that goes into any sentencing is the court’s opinion of the defendant, and these people had done the cyber equivalent of misbehaving on the courthouse lawn the night before that opinion was reached…

Now, I’m not suggesting that any of you would do anything this stupid, particularly in a business context; no one out there is likely to post damaging information about their companies, their personnel or themselves on a public website. I’m just pointing out that regardless of whether or not there should be a presumption of privacy on the Internet, there generally isn’t one – and any website that you can specifically use to share information with other people can not have one. If your business depends on presenting any sort of professional image, you must assume that images or video of yourself that contradict that image can damage your business, and that anything you post to the Internet can return to cause you trouble in the future. Networking sites are only the latest and lowest denominator of the problem; anything you make available to the public in this fashion will remain in play indefinitely…

In the long run, all you can do is put the company’s best foot forward and hope for the best. If your employees are professional and contentious, you should be able to afford the worst of these problems. Just remind them to take down their party pictures before their court date comes up…