As I was watching the news earlier this week there was a whole segment on Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer having a Twitter and Facebook account. I had never given much thought to people in such positions being involved in social media. I kind of assumed that almost everyone had joined at least one social networking site. Apparently he is the first Supreme Court Justice.
This raised questions about the content that he posts on these sites and if it is acceptable for him or any other Justice to belong to these sites. When he was asked what type of information he posted he avoided the question but praised social media for bringing greater interest to political affairs. He also stated that he first started using these sites to keep up with events happening over seas in places such as Iran and the political unrest that is occurring there. He made sure to point out that he does not accept any followers other than his children because it would be to easy for people to twist anything that he may post into something else.
I thought this was interesting because these Justices and anyone else that is in a position of power has to be careful what they post so that it is not taken out of context and so that they do not show a bias for or against anyone. This is something that everyone could make use of because anyone that is looking for a job should have a "clean" image on any social networking site they belong to and this is what Justice Breyer is striving for.
That's so interesting! I had no idea that people with political power were in a position like Stephen Breyer. We see a lot of celebrities or other people with power on social networking sites but it's a really great point that in politics tools such as Facebook or Twitter could be used to paint a politician in a bad light. Cool post!
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