The SNAFU on-line
The Internet is often likened to a giant repository of information. Anything that hits the ‘net’ is likely to stay there. At the very least it will linger a long time in the archives of search engines. Lately the subject of on-line privacy, and the reality that there is none, has caught the attention of the media. We are being bombarded with sensationalist stories about how Google stores everything you typed, ever. Every job-site these days has a warning about cleaning up your social pages. While I tend to look at all this with a healthy bit of scepticism, it’s a scare and scares pass, there is a major grain of truth in it.
Stupid things I said well over ten years ago can be dug up through archive sites. I tried. What’s perhaps worse is that things people said about me stay on-line just as long.
Removing information from the Internet is nigh impossible. Once it’s out there you’ll have to do the waiting game. You can try to push more favourable information to the forefront and if you are really brave you can try and rebuke things said about you or your brand. This is a subject all of its own and one I may well write about later. For now I would like to focus on what you can do to prevent embarrassing or detrimental information from going on-line. Since you have little control over what other people do, I will focus on what you can, or rather should, do. For this I’ve thought up a nice little acronym: SNAFU. (Or I think I have. Googling it suggests it wasn’t used with this meaning yet. Please do correct me if I’m wrong.)
SNAFU
The original meaning of SNAFU is probably well known. I will not dissect the acronym since it contains some language which would not be A, S or, ultimately, N and U. In a nutshell: A SNAFU is not good and something to avoid. So I like it, it fits.
S stands for Smart
Before putting anything on-line, and I do mean anything; from a comment on a website to an entire website, you should ask yourself: is this Smart? Will I regret doing this later?
N stands for Necessary
Is the information you are disseminating Necessary? I often run afoul of this one in the sense that I’m always second-guessing myself regarding my writings. It sometimes seems as if everything has been said before. If you read my articles you’ll often find links to further reading. Each one of those represents a scrapped article. But not everything that has been said before becomes unnecessary to say again, or differently. Context is everything. My tutorials, for example, provide nothing new in the sense that HTML and CSS can be learned from a multitude of on-line sources, yet they do (I hope, at least) provide new viewpoints and collect useful information in a single place and within a certain context. The trick is to think about this a bit before hitting ‘send’.
A stands for Appropriate
I still cringe at the thought when I’m reminded of the time I, completely innocently, said something wildly inappropriate on a mailing list and as a result got unceremoniously kicked off. The lesson learned is that you never know who is reading. Always make sure your message, wording and tone of voice are appropriate for your audience. In fact, it is best if at all possible to simply avoid saying things that could be inappropriate to anyone. If taken to extremes this, obviously, would mean not saying anything at all. As a rule of thumb though always assume that:
- Forums without a clear and enforced age policy will be read by minors.
- Any forum, anywhere, will at some point be read by someone sensitive to your opinions. Avoid off-colour jokes and such, especially if they may offend someone due to ethnicity, religious beliefs or gender.
- Anything you wouldn’t want your employer to read does not belong on-line.
- Any information you don’t want your competitor to read doesn’t even belong on your desk. That’s what we have paper shredders for.
F stands for Free
Make sure that what you are putting on-line is Free. (Or yours to do with as you please.) Talk is cheap, but it may not be free. When you quote someone, make sure to emphasise that it is a quote and to attribute it to its source. When you (re)distribute that funny image, make sure it is free of copyright. The web is chock-full with sites offering funny pictures, for example. The prevailing belief still seems to be that anything on the web is free. I foresee some costly lawsuits. It takes us too far for me to explain copyright law (and all the regional differences) but trust me on one thing; if anything someone made in any way, be it a drawing, a photograph, a graphic of any kind, even an E-mail message, can be conceivably seen as a ‘unique work’ it is protected by copyright law. Absence of the little copyright sign does nothing to diminish this. Make very sure that what you are doing has been specifically and unequivocally been allowed by the author.
A common misconception is that once put on-line, the author wouldn’t mind further distribution on-line. After all; the image or work is freely available at website x, why should the author mind if I submit it to website y? Simple; you are depriving the author of traffic to site x, you are taking the work out of context which may be detrimental to the author’s image, and, quite simply, it’s not allowed. If you park your car at the curb, does this mean you won’t mind someone taking it and parking it across town? I didn’t think so.
The images on this site, if I didn’t make them myself, were taken from a reputable stock photo site, and even then I always check the license information. There are many such stock photo sites out there so there really is no reason to use Google image search. And if you do run across that one perfect image elsewhere? Just ask nicely.
U stands for Useful
Always sit back and take a moment to consider whether what you are about to say is useful to your audience. Your on-line image suffers not only from stupid things you may say, but also from where and when you say them. You can be branded an idiot for what you say as much as from when you say it. During a board meeting, you don’t crack jokes. At a party you don’t discuss company policy.
So there you have it; a few very simple rules which will probably keep the average person from posting about two-thirds of what they would be compelled to post. We all do it. We all want to chime in. It’s only human. A bit of discretion and some forethought will save you lots of embarrassment later. Especially when you represent not yourself but your company or brand. These rules apply as much to a simple on-line debate about property taxes as they do about your corporate website. Heed them and you’ll come out smelling of roses next time someone digs through the search engines trying to find dirt on you.
Happy web building!
By the way: I would love to hear about your on-line gaffes! Put them in the comments if you dare. Thank you!
2 Comments
Comment by Leo — September 16, 2009 @ 3:47 pm
My online gaffe? To have been writing silly stuff since I was a kid and putting my name on it. I’m sure it’ll come biting me back on the ass one day, no matter how funny or clever I thought it was back then.
Pingback by Portfolio David Dylan Jessurun — October 18, 2009 @ 9:56 pm
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