eDiscovery Daily Blog

• June 3, 2016

At least once a year, I like to cover a “social media gone wrong” story to remind us how careful we all need to be when communicating via social media.  This latest one illustrates that point quite well.

According to Gawker (Close Your Porn Tabs Before Posting Screenshots to Your Congressional Campaign Page, written by Ashley Feinberg) and numerous other sources, Virginia politician Mike Webb is running for Congressman in Virginia’s 8th District. On his Facebook page, he recently posted about Curzon Staffing Agency and how his difficulties in pursuing a job related to his decision to run for office.  He even posted a picture of a Yahoo search he “screen captured” regarding the staffing agency to his “Mike Webb for Congress” Facebook account.

Only one problem – he forgot to close his porn tabs first.

Right there, plain as day, are two tabs, one for “IVONE SEXY AMATEUR” and another partially displayed title – “LAYLA RIVERA TIGHT BO” (which Gawker has determined is a film called “LAYLA RIVERA TIGHT BOOTY”, after a little research).  I’ll take their word for it.

The post was on his page for over six hours before finally being taken down.  Webb later posted a lengthy follow-up post that attempted to explain the extraneous tabs on the previous post that began this way:

“Curious by nature, I wanted to test the suggestion that somehow, lurking out in the pornographic world there is some evil operator waiting for the one in a gazillion chance that a candidate for federal office would go to that particular website and thereby be infected with a virus that would cause his or her FEC data file to crash the FECfile application each time that it was loaded on the day of the filing deadline, as well as impact other critical campaign systems.”

I think we can all agree he is curious by nature.

Let’s face it, whether you’re the former social media manager of an NBA team, an NFL running back or the daughter of a laid off school administrator who tells the world on Facebook to “SUCK IT” after her father wins an $80,000 discrimination settlement, voiding the confidentiality agreement associated with the settlement (and, therefore, the settlement itself), it pays to think before you hit send.  Just ask Anthony Weiner.  Hey, at least he made it to Congress before the gaffe that undid his career… :o)

So, what do you think?  Do you know any good “social media fail” stories?  Please share any comments you might have or if you’d like to know more about a particular topic.

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