Twitter troubles at work? Try telling that to Team Trump
Mixing your personal and professional life on social media can be a hazardous business.
Countless people have been fired after conducting themselves inappropriately online.
This, in turn, has prompted the widespread use of nervous disclaimers on social media profiles: “My opinions do not reflect those of my employer.”
The most recent and highprofile example, however, involved the US government.
To comply with the rules laid down by the State Department, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, just announced the closure of her Twitter account, disconnecting her from her 1.7 million followers.
“I have had to clear my personal Twitter account that I have had for years,” she grumbled on her new account. “The followers, the history, the pictures, and all other content.”
This outcome is a consequence of Haley using her Twitter for government business – but as the world knows only too well, no one uses their personal Twitter account for government business quite as enthusiastically as Donald Trump. Might the president have wandered into another ethical minefield?
The social media policy Ms Haley is complying with dates from June 2013.
It reads, in part: “Social media accounts created for communicating officially are to be considered official outlets and must remain in the control of the [State Department] ... personnel should be aware that repurposing an existing personal social media account as an official account may ... result in the individual’s loss of the account upon his/her departure.”
Former State Department official Graham Lampa, one of the architects of the policy, used Twitter to explain the reasoning behind it. “Some senior officials and spokespeople,” he wrote, “especially political appointee ambassadors, were directing official resources to be used to build up the followings of their personal social media accounts. It’s an ethics issue. Public officials are not supposed to benefit privately from their public office beyond the salary they draw.”
Ms Haley is by no means the only US official to have flouted the rules. A 2017 investigation by BuzzFeed News revealed that the US ambassadors to New Zealand and the Vatican were also using their personal Twitter accounts as official mouthpieces, and that Ivo Daalder, a former US envoy to Nato appointed by Barack Obama, battled to keep his Twitter after leaving the post despite an official view that it should be surrendered to the government.
Mr Trump’s unrestrained use of Twitter without official censure may strengthen the cases of other officials who decide not to comply with the rules. The “think before you post” guidelines issued to federal employees by the US Office of Government Ethics have often been bent or broken by the president. Mr Trump has described himself as a politician who is ahead of the times.
“My use of social media is not Presidential,” he tweeted in July 2017, “it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL.”
But legal experts have regularly pointed out various ethical problems raised by his vigorous social media presence. Mr Trump’s former habit of blocking people on Twitter who disagreed with his views was ruled by a federal judge back in May to breach the First Amendment. Lawyer George Conway, husband of Mr Trump’s senior aide, Kellyanne Conway, described some of his recent tweets as potentially “interfering with the fair administration of justice”, while his deletion of various tweets – including his very first misspelt tweet as US president – may contravene the Presidential Records Act.
It is highly unlikely that Mr Trump would give up his account after leaving office, not least because the State Department has already given way at least once on the issue.
Twitter may have helped Mr Trump win the previous election – might it cost him the next?