Responsibility in the Age of the Fishbowl

Apr 6, 2011 12:30 PM ET

MSLGROUP's Blog By Scott Beaudoin

Can we all agree, and finally understand that living our lives in front of the world through social media channels can have major consequences. For example:

• A local radio announcer was recently fired for his Tweets made on vacation

Gilbert Gottfried was fired over his mocking Tweets about the Japan earthquake

Now for the biggest blunder of them all.

By now most of you have seen the news regarding GoDaddy.com's CEO Bob Parsons’ video post where he hunted and killed an elephant on a trip to an African village. Oblivious to the fact that elephants are tragically being erased from the planet; Parsons posted his video online with a music track. To make matters worse, in the video you can see villagers adorned with GoDaddy hats, ripping apart the dead elephant’s flesh.

Parsons defends his trip to Africa to kill, saying the elephant was destroying village crops. Though it’s true that elephants can pose a serious problem for crops, experts agree there are effective non-lethal alternatives for dealing with the issue. Is this what a visionary CEO would do to use his company and its money to try to solve a real societal issue – pick up a rifle and call it responsibility?

Read more about how social media channels have changed our lives forever.

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