Rock Bottom: Social Media’s Five Lowest Moments
They’ve changed our lives, improved the way we do business, enhanced our relationships. But sometimes social media sites reveal the saddest and ugliest sides of our characters. Here are five unsavoury examples.
1. After her IUD failed and she became pregnant, 27-year-old mother of one Angie Jackson tweeted her abortion using the “abortion pill”, RU-486. “I’m doing this so other women know, ‘Hey, it’s not nearly as terrifying as I had myself worked up thinking it was’,” she said. “It’s just not that bad.”
2. Facebook was forced to apologise after a number of tribute sites to murdered Queensland children were defaced. Memorials to Trinity Bates, an eight-year-old girl murdered in Bundaberg, and Elliott Fletcher, a 12-year-old boy allegedly stabbed to death by a classmate in Brisbane, were flooded with obscene messages and images of murder and pornography. Police have said perpetrators will be punished, though at the time of writing no charges had been laid.
3. Anyone using Gmail was automatically signed into Google’s social messaging service Google Buzz. Instantly, their email contact list was revealed to anyone who wanted to look at it. One woman reported that her abusive ex-husband was given access to sensitive information, journalists’ sources were revealed and details of affairs were made public. Google apologised for its breach of privacy and announced it would make changes to the system.
4. A British mother jumps to her death from a fourth-floor balcony in Spain days before she’s due to give evidence against a former partner who was accused of assaulting her. She left a suicide note to her teenaged children on Facebook that read, in part, “Please, I beg you, don’t hate me for letting you down now.” Her daughter Tiffany Hernandez spotted the message and replied “Mum!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! mum... I love u 2 much, please dont leave..!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
5. US mother Shellie Ross tweeted details of her son’s death. Two-year-old Bryson fell into the family’s pool after a fence was left unlocked. Thirty-four minutes after paramedics arrived to try and revive the boy, Ross tweeted, “Please pray like never before, my 2 yr old fell in the pool.” Nearly five hours later, after her son had been pronounced dead, she followed with, “Remembering my million dollar baby”, and posted photos of Bryson. Horrified critics suggested that had Ross been paying as much attention to her son as
to Twitter, perhaps he would have been better supervised.
Become a fan of madison on FacebookFollow madison on Twitter