Snap A Picture, Share The Image

…it’s what social media was built on right?

But when that image happens to be a screen shot of a private chat conversation and is now being used to discredit someone, is that what social is about or does it cross a line? Facebook along with the multitude of social networks has given us the ability to enter into private conversations outside the normal realm of the public feed (that which is accessible by your fans, friends and followers).

Unfortunately, some people don’t care about private / public boundaries and just use social media however they see fit.

Oh have I got a story to tell…

In a nutshell…

A person friend requests me, then 5 seconds later sends me a private chat message wanting to know pricing, samples, links to work I’ve done. I say, “slow the rolls, I don’t work that way. I need to know more about you.”

So I start asking questions. Nope, the person just wants to know what I charge. He didn’t like where the conversation was going so he posted screen shots of the conversation on a public facebook group trying to discredit me.

I send a message to him…”Posting our private chat on a public forum isn’t cool, remove it and we can finish our conversation.”

He responds, “with all due respect, you came highly recommended and you wasted my time with all your questions, you could have just simplified this and given me your pricing, samples and links so now I’ll post the rest of the conversation to the group.”

Oh and he did post our conversation to the group and the cooler I was with my remarks the more this person tried to find something to “out me” with. Nope, I have awesome friends who stepped in and shut him down.

We live in a world where it’s easy to share, but that doesn’t mean it’s okay to share private conversations to public forums that clearly identify the parties involved. When we enter into a conversation with someone there is a certain expectation of privacy. So that private chat message is just that…expected to be private. So when one party shares that private conversation to a group, they are violating that expectation of privacy and crossing over legal and ethical boundaries. And if posting is done to harm another’s reputation or discredit them in anyway then it might be perceived as cyberbullying which is becoming increasingly illegal.