Irish Tourist Denied Entry to USA Over Twitter Jokes!
Posted by Aleesha Tully on Wed, Feb 01, 2012
Big brother is watching you. Right now, the US Homeland Security might be monitoring your public tweets, especially if you have an upcoming trip to the United States.
Digging up Marilyn Monroe is more trouble than it’s worth
Tweets written as a joke about “destroying America” and “digging up Marilyn Monroe” (in reference to a Family Guy episode, if you’re not aware of it) have caused two friends to be barred entrance to the United States, after the Department Of Homeland Security picked up on them. US agents monitoring Twitter came across messages by an Irish holidaymaker named Leigh Van Bryan weeks before he traveled to Los Angeles with his friend Emily Bunting. Van Bryan has told Britain’s The Sun newspaper that the pair were treated like terrorists on arrival at Los Angeles International Airport.
When their plane landed, they were held by armed officers and were interrogated for over five hours before they were handcuffed, put into a van with illegal immigrants and detained overnight. Apparently, they were held on suspicion of planning to “commit crimes”. When Van Bryan discovered that his own tweets were the source of the alert, he insisted that he was using an Irish slang for parting hard when he referred to destroying America. Nonetheless, he was sent home on the next flight out. Next time he plans a trip to the US, Van Bryan will have to apply for a special Visa to get permission to cross the border.
What does this incident teach us about social media use?
The case highlights the extreme sensitivity that US authorities have for inflammatory statements, and warns us all to watch what we say on the web, because we don’t know who could be watching us.
When planning a trip to America, remember that the staff in the airport have little to no sense of humour. Suspicion has been high ever since 9/11. However friendly and funny you may think you are, they won’t see you that way.
This incident has made me think a lot about the way I use social media. We’ve all seen the disastrous results of marketing mistakes on platforms like Twitter or Facebook, when a company has handled a certain issue in the wrong way or said the wrong thing. Internet users can be sensitive, and are also much more likely to complain in an Internet environment than they would be in a “real world” situation.
But what about personal social media use? How much damage can we do to ourselves with one tweet or LinkedIn post gone wrong? What if we don’t even realize the impact our tweets could have, just like Leigh Van Bryan?
The lesson here is that no matter if you are a marketer, posting on behalf of a brand or a personal social media user, you need to assume that EVERYONE is watching. Your tweets could be picked up on the other side of globe where the culture is a polar opposite of your own. Next time you rant about something on the Internet, or make a funny joke… consider who may read it and how it may be interpreted. If there is any doubt at all, keep it in the private domain.
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