You are fired! Writing controversial posts & ill-considered statements on social media can lead to job loss
Social media is especially dangerous for those who want to remain among the employed.
By AP |
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Lost jobs over social media statements have become a common occurrence.
LOS ANGELES: A writer from a ``Law & Order`` spin-off and the play-by-play broadcaster for the NBA's Sacramento Kings found themselves out of jobs after making social media posts this week that their bosses found too incendiary or insensitive, highlighting an apparent surge in such firings across many lines of work.
Lost jobs over social media statements that seemed like a good idea at the time have become a common occurrence, but the tense environment of nationwide protests against racism and police brutality with the backdrop of the coronavirus pandemic have made Twitter, Instagram and Facebook especially dangerous for those who want to remain among the employed.
With the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, who died after a police officer pinned his knee into his neck, even when he had become unresponsive, and the coronavirus that has killed over 100,000 and left others unemployed and many socially distant, feelings and emotions are strong. It can be difficult to resist the urge to post or tweet, even for people such as police officers, local officials or teachers who are bound to draw scrutiny.
``People when they see a breaking news story they get that rush of wanting to be a part of something,'' said Danny Deraney, a publicist who often works in crisis management. ``There's an adrenaline. They feel like they're saying something so profound. But they need to think before they tweet.``
Craig Gore, who has worked on the shows ``S.W.A.T.'' and ``Chicago P.D.,'' was fired Tuesday from the forthcoming ``Law & Order: Organized Crime'' spin-off because of Facebook posts. One was captioned ``Curfew.'' in which he's shown holding a rifle on his front porch, and in another full of expletives, he threatens to shoot looters who come near his home.
Given the gravity of the moment, Gore's boss, ``Law & Order'' franchise creator Dick Wolf, did not warn or suspend him but went straight to firing, saying in a statement, ``I will not tolerate this conduct, especially during our hour of national grief.``
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A lawyer for Gore did not respond to a request for comment.
Social media-based firings are not just for the prominent. Grant Napear, longtime TV announcer for the NBA's Sacramento Kings was fired from his talk radio job and subsequently resigned Tuesday from the team's broadcast crew after he tweeted ``ALL LIVES MATTER'' and more to former Kings player DeMarcus Cousins when asked his opinion on the Black Lives Matter movement.
Bonneville International, owner of the radio station that fired Napear, said in a statement, ``The timing of Grant's tweet was particularly insensitive.''
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Napear later tweeted, ``I've been doing more listening than talking the past few days,'' and ``I believe the past few days will change this country for the better!''
And social media-based firings are not just for the prominent.
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Many others from public-facing institutions and businesses have been sanctioned, demoted, suspended or fired for impolitic statements online in recent days.
The principal trombonist from the Austin Symphony Orchestra was let go after a string of Facebook comments, including one in which she said black protesters ``deserve what they get.''
The personal accounts of police are under especially tight scrutiny.
A Denver officer was fired Tuesday for writing ``Let's start a riot'' as the caption to an Instagram picture of himself and two fellow officers smiling in riot gear. An officer in Fulton, New York, posted an Instagram image that read, ``Black lives only matter to black people unless they are killed by a white person'' and found himself out of a job.
The poor timing cited by the former bosses Gore and Napear can make posts that might otherwise pass unnoticed have major consequences, especially in a moment marked by a volatile combination of politics and race.
``If you're in a situation like this, you've got to read the room,'' Deraney said. You've got to get a sense of what's going on. You don't need to always say something. These people who are getting fired or resigning, they're not realizing this.''
Tinker, Tailor, Tyrant, Spy: Sundry Jobs Of Dictators
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Hosni Mubarak, the late autocratic president of Egypt, had swapped his military fatigues for civvies before setting up house at Cairo’s Presidential Palace for the better part of three decades.
Here are the sundry jobs of other dictators
Hosni Mubarak, the late autocratic president of Egypt, had swapped his military fatigues for civvies before setting up house at Cairo’s Presidential Palace for the better part of three decades. Here ..
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A staunch communist, the former president of North Vietnam once worked as a baker in the US. Aged 21, Ho Chi Minh embarked on a voyage to New York, via Paris and London, moonlighting as a dishwasher to pay for the crossing. In the early 20th century, he served in the kitchens of the Parker House Hotel in Boston, whose guests, over the years, included writer Charles Dickens and John Wilkes Booth, notorious for murdering Abraham Lincoln.
After returning to Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh helped liberate his country from colonial France, before delivering a pyrrhic victory against the US in the 1970s. “Anyone who does not follow the line determined by me will be smashed,” he once said. Around 100,000 people, mostly “class enemies” are thought to have been killed by his regime. Corpses, by the baker’s dozen, were dumped in the Saigon River.
(Image: Britannica/AP)
A staunch communist, the former president of North Vietnam once worked as a baker in the US. Aged 21, Ho Chi Minh embarked on a voyage to New York, via Paris and London, moonlighting as a dishwasher ..
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Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, a young seminarian with webbed feet, knew which way the wind would blow. Born in Gori, a small town in the Caucasus, Dzhugashvili harboured revolutionary leanings well before giving up the cassock for his now-trademark military greatcoat. However, before joining the ranks of the Bolsheviks, Dzhugashvili worked as a clerk in a meteorological observatory in modern-day Georgia, noting down barometer readings on an hourly basis.
He changed his name to Joseph Stalin in 1912 and became an acolyte of Vladimir Lenin, eventually becoming the latter’s political heir. Stalin outmanoeuvred rivals and executed “reactionaries” after assuming charge of the Soviet Union in 1924. Around 60 million civilians are estimated to have been killed under his watch.
(Image: Amazon)
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, a young seminarian with webbed feet, knew which way the wind would blow. Born in Gori, a small town in the Caucasus, Dzhugashvili harboured revolutionary leanings w..
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The Cambodian strongman, a veteran of many parent-teacher meetings, schooled his compatriots in Marxist-Leninist ideology after being sacked as an elementary school teacher in 1955.
Born into an affluent family, Pot studied at the École française de radioélectricité, an engineering institute in Paris. He failed his exams and returned to Cambodia. Despite his lack of training, Pot got a job as a teacher of history, geography and morals at a school in Phnom Penh. He proved to be an incompetent educator and joined the Khmer Rouge —a militant faction of the Cambodian Communist Party — which ousted the government and blew up the central bank.
Pol Pot installed himself as the Prime Minister of Democratic Kampuchea in 1975. He initiated a purge of political rivals and citizens antithetical to his disastrous economic and cultural reforms. In 2009, the Documentation Center of Cambodia mapped 23,745 mass graves containing approximately 1.3 million victims of execution. The Khmer Rouge was overthrown in 1979 after an invasion by neighbouring Vietnam.
(Image: Wikipedia)
The Cambodian strongman, a veteran of many parent-teacher meetings, schooled his compatriots in Marxist-Leninist ideology after being sacked as an elementary school teacher in 1955.Born into an afflu..
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Duvalier, Haiti’s self-proclaimed ‘President for Life’, was a successful physician before breaking his Hippocratic Oath. Duvalier professed to have supernatural powers, even claiming that John F Kennedy was assassinated because of a curse he had placed on the former American president.
‘Papa Doc’ Duvalier came to power by promoting ‘Noirisme’, a movement that united the island’s black majority against mulatto elites. His diktat was enforced by the Tonton Macoute, a special operations unit of the Haiti’s paramilitary force, which killed and maimed dissenters. Papa Doc died of a heart attack in 1971, and was succeeded by his son Jean-Claude Duvalier, who at 19 became the world’s youngest president.
(Image: Britannica/AP)
Duvalier, Haiti’s self-proclaimed ‘President for Life’, was a successful physician before breaking his Hippocratic Oath. Duvalier professed to have supernatural powers, even claiming that John F Kenn..
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