NFL running back Larry Johnson was released by the Kansas City Chiefs earlier this week. Johnson has been troubled by personal issues before, including throwing a drink in a woman’s face at a club. Earlier this season after a game, Johnson posted a gay slur to his Twitter account along with questions about the competence of his head coach. Johnson was suspended for the second time in a year and was released following the end of the suspension. This story, and others like it, brings to light the issue of organizations monitoring the social networking of their members.
Twitter and other social networking sites provide an opportunity for people to speak their minds. In Larry Johnson’s case, what was spoken got him into trouble. Obviously the Kansas City Chiefs organization and the media monitored what Johnson posted to his Twitter. Should other organizations do the same?
Pete Wilson opened up that discussion on his blog; he asked the question of whether or not churches should monitor their employees’ Twitter accounts and other social networking interactions. A number of people left comments saying that churches shouldn’t have to resort to monitoring their staff’s Twitter accounts. They believed that if the situation has gotten so bad as to require monitoring of Twitter accounts, then there are much deeper issues that need to be addressed. Obviously there need to be healthy working relationships among staff members outside of social networking; those relationships would most likely address any issues before they made it to the Internet. But that doesn’t mean churches and their senior leadership shouldn’t monitor what their staff is tweeting.
As Larry Johnson proved, someone can get into a lot of trouble in 140 characters or less. No matter how great the relationships are, someone employed at a church could have a bad night or a terrible experience during a service, and turn to Twitter to vent. It’s for those moments that churches, or at least senior leadership, should be monitoring the tweets and social networking of their staff. Leaders, especially paid staff, are representatives of the church and what they say, whether audibly or virtually, has an impact on the church’s reputation and image.
Both my immediate supervisor and senior pastor follow me on Twitter. If I said something that cast the church in a bad light, I would expect them to address that with me; especially if we had a good relationship. Sometimes, no matter how good the relationship, though, unexpected tweets pop up, and those need to be monitored and addressed.
Churches shouldn’t monitor every word typed or posted by members of the congregation. Leaders are held to a higher standard, though. Monitoring of tweets isn’t a sign of some dystopian, Orwellian future; it’s part and parcel with being a leader. If we want complete freedom with our 140 characters, then we need to reconsider how much we want to lead.
What do you think? Should churches monitor their paid staff’s interaction on Twitter and other social networking sites?
yeah, better to be preventative. good words.
ReplyDeleteIt's not an invasion of privacy. It is reading something another person put out for other people to see, and by doing so you can keep someone accountable to their responsibilities, as well as possibly averting problems in the future.
ReplyDeleteCrafty head honchos could be doing it while as well keeping up to date no their staffs lives and improving relationships with them.
Monitor away I say.
If monitoring is happening out of suspicion or out of a lack of trust, I think that points to a problem in staff relationships. Just following someone to read their tweets is one thing, following them with the express purpose of looking for innapropriate comments or whatever reveals a lack of trust, which is an issue that should be dealt with face to face, not through secret monitoring. That's just shady.
ReplyDelete@Kyle: That's true. It's hard to invade someone's privacy when they're placing their thoughts and ideas on a public forum.
ReplyDelete@Ron: True. I think senior leadership should just follow what their staff's are communicating via social networking. That doesn't have to be out of suspicion. However, if something questionable pops up, then that has to be addressed. A lot of those issues can be nipped in the bud with strong staff relationships and clear guidelines.
ReplyDeletei think leaders in the church will natuarally have a close friendship with the other leaders in their church. so of course the would subscribe to youre tweets, if they are into tweeting and such. but i dont think they would confront you about tweets before they confronted you about some problem they saw in you before the tweets started.
ReplyDelete