A couple of Burger King executives got fired this week. Seems the company was in an ongoing fight with a group over what workers are paid to pick tomatoes in Florida. The BK executives apparently did some anonymous blog posts knocking the other side.
There are all sorts of interesting aspects to this story.
First is the fact that what someone did on a blog was a big enough deal that they were fired…although that may have had as much to do with corporate PR positioning as actual anger over what they did.
Secondly, its a good reminder: don’t do anything stupid. I don’t know about all of you, but I need that reminder more often than I care to admit.
But the best part is that they got caught because the bigger issue here is the ability of people to post anonymously on the web. On one hand, it makes people free to say things without fear of retribution. That’s the upside. But it allows people to spew hate and venom, which they do way too much. If you monitor news sites comments sections there are often terrible, vicious things being said…things these people would never say if someone knew it was them making the statements. It’s the digital version of the hood that Klansmen used to wear. They wanted people to know how they felt, but they didn’t have the guts (or other anatomical parts of your choosing) to say who they were. They were cowards who hid behind their masks. Now cowards can hide behind fakename@yahoo.com.
It’s a big issue for all of us, but especially journalists, and we will all be wrestling with it for a while.
For now, let the Burger King lesson be this: if you don’t want people to know it is you saying it then don’t say it.
OK…everybody back to work.
