The Perils of Posting Rumors

Posting rumors on Facebook as facts is dangerous. All Facebook pages are public, and all posts on them are public. Posting false information at the very least is unfair to the subject of that, and at worst can be legally libelous or physically dangerous.

I teach the use of social media. I speak at conferences internationally on the use of social media during disasters. Anyone authorized to publish posts on a Facebook page posts as that page. That means administrators and editors don’t show by name on a post. The reading public only knows the entity posted.  For example, ABC Corp may have 2 admins and 3 editors, but all posts show as coming from ABC Corp.

Imagine the consequences for publishing a shelter location during a category 4 hurricane because you “hear” one is open at a particular location.  Imagine, again, that a family takes off for that shelter and a tree falls on their car, injuring the occupants. Imagine, as well, that the information was incorrect.

This example may sound extreme, but short of the injuries, it’s happened. It happens all the time in the political world, too, but there’s no reason for it. Just today, two days after I became a precinct chair, the Bastrop County Republican Party published lies about me.  I have no way of knowing who the admins are on the page, nor who posted the lies. So, I called them on it. Only then, did someone acknowledge he was the author. You would not have known that had I not cried foul. And as I write this, the lies remain.

As president of the Women’s Republican Club, I do not endorse publicly when more than two Republicans are in a race.  The Republican Chair is a member of a women’s Republican club, so should know this. I’ve previously told Mr Weller this. And, I had emailed the candidate on May 4, asking her to remove my name as an endorser. So posting that I am supporting this candidate or that is false. As I write this post, I am at the Texas GOP convention, purposefully not wearing a sticker for either candidate in the TX GOP chair race for just this reason.
Response to Facebook false post

 

 

 

 

 

This is not a good way to start a precinct chair term. If the new Chair really wants to turn over a new leaf, she’ll take this post down ASAP.