Other times, you might want to distance yourself from the rest of society. One or both of these reactions would apply to the mountain of Facebook, Twitter, and Stack Overflow posts that got people in trouble this year. Since social networking sites and online communities are just part of the norm now, many seem to forget that their tweets and status updates are going public. And that public means global.
In 2013, these were the prized members of society who took humanity down a few pegs.
1. Ross William Ulbricht, Founder of Silk Road
It's one thing to start an underground website that sells illegal stuff, like heroin and weapons. It's quite another to get cocky about it and assume you won't get caught. Such was the case with Mr. Ulbricht, who created a libertarian wonderland with The Silk Road. Ulbricht's level of government distrust led him to make his transactions using bitcoins, of which he made $1.2 billion in sales. He was initially caught by the feds in March 2012, when he posted a question on Stack Overflow.
Under his real name.
Of course, Ulbricht quickly changed his name to "frosty," which is the same name he gave the server that houses data for the entire Silk Road website. And, of course, the question was regarding how to connect to Tor, the application used to access the deep web.
The developer was apprehended in October 2013, after authorities gathered up evidence of several drug trafficking offenses -- and a little bit of hitman hiring. Perhaps the most perplexing, is why Ulbricht stayed in the U.S. at a time when Edward Snowden had fled to Russia, and Bradley Manning had been sentenced to prison.
2. A 14-Year-Old Girl
In Florida, a middle school student was subjected to teasing and beatings by a group of classmates, one of whom became her enemy after fighting over a boy. The victim, Rebecca Sedwick, had already attempted suicide as a result of her mistreatment, but then began to receive text messages pressuring her to kill herself. In September 2013, Sedwick jumped from a pair of silos at a concrete plant, ending her life. Already suspects, the identities of Rebecca's bullies are protected due to their age. Their text messages, however, have been traced by law enforcement officials. Perhaps the most incriminating post was typed by their leader in a Facebook status:
"Yes IK I bullied REBECCA nd she killed her self but IDGAF (I don't give a f*ck)."
Not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed.
3. Derek Medina, Self-Help Author
To say Mr. Medina had a turbulent marriage would be an understatement. He and his wife, Jennifer Alfonso, had actually split up before remarrying, and friends of the couple were aware of issues in their relationship. During one of their arguments, Alfonso threatened to leave her husband, and the two began trading punches. Medina finally pulled out a gun and shot her to death.
This man's first instinct was to take a picture of his wife's body on their kitchen floor, post it to Facebook, and add a farewell note to his friends and family. Of course, this story ended up being national news, leading the American public to learn of Medina's "career" as the author of "self-help" books. Self-help books with 30-word titles.
Not all online posts are so grim, though…
4. Jofi Joseph, National Security Official
Joseph, a White House National Security official, was recently fired for sending tweets under a pseudonym -- "natsecwonk." Most of these tweets were snarky in nature and targeted various beltway colleagues. Remarking on the intelligence or appearance of those on Capitol Hill, the natsecwonk Twitter handle gained a following amongst many members of the media as well. Since Joseph, though once trusted as a friendly and professional coworker, was found to have such a sophomoric and disrespectful personality online, he was immediately fired from his cushy government position. The White House had no comment.
5. Sunith Baheerathan, Auto Mechanic
If you need a quick pick-me-up at work, maybe you should just settle for a cup of coffee.
Mr. Baheerathan worked for Mr. Lube, a Toronto tune-up shop. He apparently couldn't handle his open-to-close shift, and enlisted the help of his Twitter followers. Because they're his minions, I guess. Asking for a "spliff or two," Baheerathan offered $20 to the first drug dealer willing to make his business public. In a plot development J.J. Abrams couldn't write, the York Regional Police had their own Twitter account, which they used to reply with "Awesome! Can we come too?" After being shared all over the world and featured all throughout the internet, the pothead still didn't seem to understand that he was in trouble.
"Can't lie, stupid move but would y'all have noticed that tweet if YRP didn't retweet it?"
You probably already know what happened to Sunith's job.
These prized citizens of Earth made us look bad. With the year winding down, for pete's sake, lets try to set a better example in 2014.
Author Bio
Written by Fueled (http://www.Fueled.com), award winning iOS app developers, we build amazing mobile apps.
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