By Xi Chen | Cronkite News Service
Social media can be a powerful tool for politicians. Or it can be “just another place to put your foot in your mouth,” as two Arizona lawmakers indirectly learned this week.
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., apologized Wednesday for his teenage son’s use of offensive slurs on Twitter, the same day Rep. Trent Franks, R-Glendale, was put on the defensive for comments about rape and abortion that exploded on the Internet.
Experts say the incidents are reminders that people, particularly people in public life, need to be careful about social media.
“Things that we used to say to three or four people can now be heard around the world,” said Gary Kebbel, director of the Center for Mobile Media at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
And it echoes for a long time, said Leonard Downie Jr., a former executive editor of The Washington Post.
“Social media creates a new permanent record for everyone who uses it. Everybody can see it and it doesn’t go away,” said Downie, now on faculty at Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.
But just as there’s no turning back an errant tweet, there’s no turning back social media, Downie said. It’s “just the reality of the new digital world.”
