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DIGITAL MEDIA GHOST | PRIVACY CONCERNS 
If you put it out there, it can potentially go everywhere. That is the simple truth; which means you always have to be discriminating and vigilant.
Social sabotage can be costly. For Patrick Snay, the subject of this week's focus, the price tag of his daughter’s social misstep was the $80,000 settlement won in his age discrimination suit. Ouch.
The terms of the settlement included a standard confidentiality clause, which meant that Snay should never have told his daughter (as she wasn’t involved in the case), but it's understandable that he did. For most people, spouses, siblings and other family members are often the exceptions to the “Don’t tell anyone!” directive.
It was a breach, but no one would ever have known if Snay’s daughter hadn’t made her knowledge public in a Facebook shout-out about the settlement, complete with a snarky comment about her upcoming European vacation. The confidentiality agreement violated, the settlement was tossed out. A costly lesson for both father and daughter.
Social Sabotage Doesn't Discriminate
What’s important to note here is that social sabotage is not just something that happens to, or impacts, businesses. Today’s youth are particularly vulnerable because the centuries-old “learn as you go” path to adulthood now takes place in a variety of public forums, with not nearly enough monitoring or education to prevent learning things the hard way. One misguided click can have instantaneous and far-reaching consequences. With youth (though not exclusively) comes naiveté, and the ability to ignore both common sense and the advice of others; which presents an added challenge to the parents and teachers trying to guide their charges through the minefield of the digital realm. But we won’t stop trying, and we don’t want parents and teachers to stop either. Rule One It cannot be overstated – in fact, I am hereby dubbing it Rule One for our social sabotage discussion purposes: THERE IS NO PRIVACY ON THE INTERNET. Unless you are Creed Bratton “blogging” via an oddly named Word document, offline, set up by bored office temp Ryan Howard (please refer to “The Office” season 3, episode 24 in your textbooks), there are no privacy settings so secure that you can ever be assured of complete protection. If you put it out there, it can potentially go everywhere. That is the simple truth; which means you always have to be discriminating and vigilant. It sounds scary, but we’re here to make it less so. Subscribe to our ghost tips for advice on wrangling social media, or reach out if you need more personalized help.
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