Be careful with direct/private messages on social networking sites

Remember the early days of email when people were getting used to the concepts of "reply" and "forward"?  Embarrassing situations often resulted when people mistakenly forwarded what should have been a private email to an entire group of people at work.  Or they used "reply all" instead of just "reply" and included everyone on something that should have been to just one person.

This happened so often that mainstream news organizations used to run articles in the business section recounting amusing -- and, often harrowing -- stories of email gone wrong.  

I'm wondering if we're going to see a resurgence of that with Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn private/direct messages.

Case in point.  Someone in my local Twitter community recently sent a direct message to his girlfriend of a rather, well, private nature. Except, he didn't send it as a DM.  He tweeted it publicly. For everyone to read and see.  He quickly deleted it, but the damage was done. Everyone had seen it.

Now, imagine this was an attorney messaging a client, and what should have been a private exchange went public.  Or, an attorney messaging a colleague complaining about a client.  

Exactly.

I'm not saying don't use Twitter, Facebook or LinkedIn.  They're very powerful tools.  What I am saying is that even though you think it's private, you should't direct message anything that could cause you problems should it get out.  You might mistakenly tweet it to the world. For this kind of communication, you're better off doing it by phone. 

Or email.  Just don't send it to the entire department at work.