{"id":144859,"date":"2015-11-05T13:01:43","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T11:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=144859"},"modified":"2015-11-05T14:13:31","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T12:13:31","slug":"fired-for-liking-a-post-on-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/columns\/144859-fired-for-liking-a-post-on-facebook.html","title":{"rendered":"Fired for sharing a post on Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"

The DA\u2019s Whip in the National Assembly, Dianne Kohler Barnard, was recently found guilty of misconduct and dismissed<\/a><\/strong> by the party\u2019s Federal Executive.<\/p>\n

The ruling followed an investigation after Kohler Barnard shared\u00a0a post on Facebook<\/a><\/strong> which called for the return of PW Botha to fix the public service problems in South Africa.<\/p>\n

It is nothing new for someone in South Africa to be fired for a statement on social platforms like Twitter or Facebook.<\/p>\n

Hawks spokesman McIntosh Polela was fired<\/strong><\/a> after he tweeted \u201cI trust Jub Jub\u2019s supporters gave him a jar of Vaseline to take to prison\u201d.<\/p>\n

In 2013,\u00a0two FHM employees were dismissed<\/a><\/strong> after they made controversial comments regarding rape on Facebook.<\/p>\n

What makes Kohler Barnard\u2019s case different is that she only shared\u00a0a post. However, the result was the same.<\/p>\n

She apologised soon afterwards<\/strong><\/a>, saying it was done in error. \u201cI apologise unreservedly for sharing a post on Facebook… I erased it immediately when I realised\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhoever reads it must know that I would never endorse such a thing in my life,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

It was too late. With the DA doing its best to distance itself from any potential links to apartheid, her fate was sealed.<\/p>\n

Many people felt that the punishment did not fit the crime<\/a><\/strong>, and that her demotion in parliament<\/a><\/strong> would have sufficed.<\/p>\n

Whether it was fair or not is irrelevant, though. This case showed that you can be fired for the smallest of actions on social media \u2013 a click.<\/p>\n

Considering the potential consequences of doing the wrong thing on Facebook or Twitter, the negatives may start to outweigh the positives for any high-profile person to interact on these platforms.<\/p>\n

More on Facebook<\/h3>\n

DA\u2019s Kohler Barnard to pay for Facebook share<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

DA shadow minister demoted after Facebook post<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You can lose your job by simply sharing a Facebook post or retweeting a Twitter comment, as shown in the recent Dianne Kohler Barnard debacle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":140768,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[8999,19623,161,35,405],"class_list":["post-144859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-columns","tag-da","tag-dianne-kohler-barnard","tag-facebook","tag-headline","tag-twitter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144859"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144859"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":144897,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144859\/revisions\/144897"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}