Twitterati Trouble: 13 Twitter Updates Gone Bad

Twitter is popular. Twitter is everywhere. You can tell the world what you’re up to but a careless unsuspecting tweet could spell trouble.

Just check out the following mishaps:

1. How to tweet yourself out of a job
   Cisco offered someone a job, and this made him think (and tweet) on weighing a fatty paycheck against commuting to San Jose and hating work.
2. Ketchum employee visiting Fedex in Memphis tweets he’ll die if he lives there
   A Fedex employee found the tweet, copied the management and the chain of command at Ketchum.
3. NBA Player becomes Twitter addict
   CV31, Milwaukee Bucks’ Charlie Villanueva gets into trouble for tweeting in a halftime break. Who can blame him? Twenty four minutes later, the Bucks beat the Boston Celtics. OK, he’ll suspend those halftime tweets.
4. Juror’s Twitter comment could cause a mistrial
   Jonathan Powell’s tweet about a case of a construction company losing $12m could overturn a decision: “So, Johnathan, what did you do today?” Oh, nothing really. I just gave away TWELVE MILLION DOLLARS of somebody else’s money!
5. MSNBC writer insults Twitterati
   Thinks “If voyeurism is your thing, this is why Twitter is for you.”



6. Brand name squatting leads to people thinking BBC is publishing insult
   An apparently stolen (or squatted) BBC account fires back an insult after a charity boss slams it for failing to air a Disaster Emergencies Committee’s Gaza appeal. The moral of the story: brands should claim their Twitter accounts pretty soon.
7. Rocky Mountain News reporter tweets a funeral
   Reporter Berny Morson thought sending tweets as live coverage of a funeral is a cool thing to do.
8. PR blogger Steve Rubel learns a thing or two on impulsive Twitter updates
   Thought his free PC Magazine subscriptions deserve to be in the trash.
9. Surgeons learn to tweet too!
   This doesn’t exactly qualify as tweetering gone bad. But somehow it’s hard to imagine someone wielding a scalpel on one hand and an iPhone on the other, sending surgery procedure updates.
10. Home break-in gets spontaneous coverage
    Ditto. Revision3 COO David Prager had 14 tweets to describe what a stranger is doing in is house.
11. Reporter’s Twitter tirade with a consultant goes public
    David George-Cosh of Canada’s National Post got mad April Dunford did not return is call. She fired back — in Twitter, and all hell broke loose.
12. Mark Cuban finds alternative means to get fined
    Mark Cuban, owner of NBA’s Dallas Mavericks gets fined for sending Twitter updates critical of the way officials handled a basketball game involving his team.

    scary part of that play: Same crew chief from game in Denver where they missed call – last play of the game & 1st JRSmith/Wright issue.

    What an expensive way to express your freedom of speech.

13. What if terrorists also use Twitter?
    A US congressman tweets his arrival in Baghdad and prompts a review of Pentagon policies.

Photo credit: Shovelling Son