Career Suicide by Social Media

The FDNY EMS is back in the news for lapses in judgement on what their employees post online to social media. The NY Post calls it “Pic and Twisted“. Blogger Dave Statter of Statter911 calls this trend Social Media Assisted Career Suicide Syndrome (SMACSS).

NY Post Exclusive

The police officer in me likens this to the term “Suicide by Cop”… or in this case it is “Career Suicide by Social Media”.

I have the sinking feeling that soon any police/fire/EMS department that does not have a social media policy will have one. Employees who did not care about what they posted online soon will have to think twice about postings.

I know I am re-evaluating how I run RescueHumor. Don’t worry I will not going to shut this page down. But I do need to be a bit more proactive in making sure I don’t cross any lines. Believe it or not I get photos emailed to me that I do not post. I do not post  graphic injuries, no nudity, and usually I blur out or obscure faces/identifiable logos in photos.

I know people who have “trophy” photos. Photos of nasty scenes. Photos of notable arrests. Photos of large seizures of cash or drugs. Photos with exotic cars or guns. Basically photos of anything worthy of bragging rights. Been there, done that, got the photo as proof.

When it comes to taking “trophy” photos I am not about to pass my judgement on if you should or not. That is your personal ethics. But let me say this about posting them online to Facebook or any other place. Think about what your mom, your grandmother, you kids or your boss would think about your post.

Would you be embarrassed or ashamed if your mom/grandma/kids/boss saw something you posted online?

Would you be upset if someone else posted this but the content was a depiction of you mom/grandma/kids?

If the answer is YES to one of the above questions then you might want to think twice about if you post something or not.