A preacher in the States is warning his parishioners about the dangers of FaceBook. He is making this move after he claimed that 20 couples in his congregation have developed marital problems due to using this social media website. Rev. Cedric Miller from New Jersey is warning couples that continued use of FaceBook is putting their marriages at risk. The preacher is worried that this social media website is causing people to hook up with old flames and sin in other ways too. In the past he told his parishioners to share their passwords with their spouse so there could be no secrets – he now believes though that this doesn’t go far enough. Some of his followers have reacted badly to this announcement while others have already abandoned the website.

There are now over half a billion people using FaceBook and it has become an important part of our world. A few decades ago this same preacher would have been telling people to turn off their TVs, and before that to turn off their radios – go back a few hundred years and this type of preacher was likely warning people of the dangers of reading. Some people find it easier to blame the modern world rather then consider personal responsibility. If married people are going online to get back together with old romantic interests then there is something a lot more going on than just FaceBook. Perhaps this cleric just has a habit of attracting parishioners who just have loose morals – he wouldn’t be the first. Rather than blaming something like FaceBook he might want to consider his own failures at helping his parishioners work at their marriage. Of course this is unlikely to happen as it is much easier to blame social media.

An investigation in the United States has ruled that it was wrong to fire an employee because of what she wrote about her boss on Facebook. While this case took place in the States it will be interesting to see what implications it will have for us here in the UK. For Americans anyway it seems that freedom of speech allows them to say things about their boss on a social media website. It will be interesting to see if more people now take advantage of this privileged – before they get too carried away though they might want to look more closely at this case.

While this case found that the employee didn’t do anything wrong by complaining about her boss on Facebook – it doesn’t give everyone a carte blanche to say what they want about people. If they launched a personal attack against their boss this could still land people in trouble and maybe even cost someone their job. We also need to be realistic here, attacking your boss on a social media website is hardly going to get you a promotion. While this came might make it harder from American bosses to fire employees for what they say on Facebook; they will likely still get their revenge in other ways.

Personally I don’t understand why anyone would want to write stuff about their boss on a social media site – “what happens in fight club, stays in fight club’. It also seems a bit naïve to launch such an attack and possibly even a bit mean spirited. It seems though that these days most of us will post about anything that happens in our life. It is like if we haven’t tweeted about it or posted it to our wall it hasn’t really happened.