We Are Our Own ‘Big Brother’

Recently I was at a social media breakfast that occurs regularly here in Houston. The topic of discussion was social media policies for organizations. I hadn’t given a social media policy much thought before this meeting but as the panelists were discussing their thoughts on the subject I began to think. Specifically, I began to think about how social media is creeping (pardon the pun) into our lives a little here and a little there. Privacy has slowly been deteriorating in no small part due to our own transparency and sharing much of what we think, say, do, where we go, what we eat, who we’re with, etc. It’s one big social experiment and many of us are all too willing to participate. Facebook has well over 500 million users now!



But how far will it go? How far will we go? Are we turning into our own Big Brother? Our own worst enemy? Let’s hope not.

Even more specifically and to my main point, I began thinking about how all of this sharing (more importantly what we share), may not mix very well with our various corporate or organizational cultures. I believe that it’s just a matter of time before these corporate cultures may intrude on our personal lives significantly, if they haven’t already. What do I mean intrude? Well, with social media and many of us “friending” coworkers, customers, vendors and other work-related people at some point the organizations that we work for could begin dictating our behavior after normal business hours. Back in the day, before social media (way back in pre-2007 - heh heh) most of what happened away from work, stayed away from work. However, now the two are being bridged by social media.

I suppose the crux of my concern is that these corporate social media policies could begin to infringe on our civil liberties and right to free speech. That may sound grandiose (it does :) but it could happen. It could be that these policies dictate what we cannot say so much so that it takes the “us” out of our status updates and tweets. Then we might have to decide if it’s really worth it to be involved if we can’t be ourselves.

For me, the answer to that would be a big, fat NO. There is no way I’d want to police everything I say. That would take out all of the fun and spontaneity out of it. It would no longer be me. It would no longer be fun.

Social media is still very much the Wild West. There aren’t many rules or policies set in stone. We should enjoy it while it lasts as it won’t be long before “Big Brother” and “The Man” begin to crack down at least a little, if not a lot.