Oh be careful little hands, what you type!

I hadn’t focused my blog posts on social media because quite frankly, I think most of us are tired of reading about it.

I realize that many people don’t with social media that often unless we’re checking our Facebook accounts, which is totally fine. This is why this blog post is so relevant to a larger audience.

I recently posted, what I thought was an innocent question on my Facebook page. The question asked my friends to come up with a theme song for President Barack Obama’s departure from the podium after a news conference. If you haven’t noticed, that’s a long walk back to his office. Besides, I kind of think our President as some ‘swagger’ and should have some really cool theme music.

I added an important disclaimer to my Facebook question, noting that “anti-Obama” comments would be deleted, as I am a fan of our 44th president. The responses started out innocently enough and eventually snowballed into a 32 response thread that debated healthcare. Not at all what I had envisioned when I posed the question. There are a lot of passionate people on both sides of this debate, but I didn’t particularly care to rehash the pros and cons on my Facebook page.

Facebook is about connecting with old friends. Sharing pictures of your kids in Halloween costumes and other family-friendly events. Or at least that’s what I use it for. I appreciate that there are major corporations, non-profits and other entities that use Facebook as well.

But once something is out, it’s out. You can remove it or delete it, but if anyone saw it – even for a second – it’s hard to reel that back in.

One important lesson to learn about social media – and Facebook, is that you could be letting the world into a private part of your life. I’ve noticed that many people opt not to tell all the little “dirty details” – such as their political party affiliation, their employer, or religious preference. And they are within their right to choose what they will and won’t share.

Another thing I learned from this experience is you really have no control over social media messages. Once you post something, you can’t control who responds or sees it. One friend told me that she had posted something about the President’s health care proposal right after the news conference and awoke to a litany of anti-Obama remarks on her Facebook page.

In my case, I’ve decided to play editor. I deleted all of the comments to my question that weren’t directly related to the question. I also de-friended someone who I felt was only going to be a pest. Don’t believe me? He sent me an e-mail after I block him that basically said, ‘I know you blocked me.” Yikes.

I’m for a good debate and even sharing ideas, but I don’t have to contend with content that I may deem snarky or rude. One of the posters did apologize if he had offended anyone or ‘gone too far.’ His apology showed he wasn’t making things personal. And maybe that’s what the problem was on my part.

I had taken the comments personally. I assumed that the comments were not fairly measured by our President’s ability to lead, but rather they were being made by people who saw only his race.

I grew up in rural West Virginia and know first hand what discrimination and bigotry feels, looks and smells like. Most of my friends who were making these comments hail from the Mountain State, a state that made its decision early in deciding it would not be voting for the President. (I know, what about Iowa?)

When I look back on my educational years, which I shared with many of the same people who were attacking the President by calling him ‘anti-freedom’ and a ‘socialist’ it does make me wonder. What did I ever have in common with them? We shared a classroom or a bus ride. Was that all there ever was?

Was I judging them based on race as well? Was it really that outlandish to think a person could look past someone’s skin color and take into consideration their qualifications and abilities?

For this smart communicator, I would caution anyone from posting anything to a social media site, if you don’t want to deal with the repercussions and backlash. Use your privacy settings to communicate things to a group or keep others from seeing it. If social media has taught me anything, it’s that we all are going to need to grow some pretty thick skins to deal with our detractors.