Kurt Greenbaum, a director of social media for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has answered an important question. Namely: "What happens when someone that knows very little about social media gets a job as a director of social media?" In answering the question, Greenbaum reveals himself as unethical and hypocritical.
Kurt Greenbaum blogs at STL Social Media Guy, and is the online news director and now director of social media. On his hard-hitting blog, Greenbaum asked readers: "What's the craziest thing you've ever eaten?" A not especially clever person wrote, "Pussy." Harhar. A moderator deleted the comment. Wanting his voice to be heard, the nit-wit posted again, "Pussy."
Mr. Greenbaum was enraged. He had to get revenge. He obtained the ISP # of the commenter, and called the commenter's employer. The commenter, who worked at a high school, resigned. Pity the students the loss of someone so creative!
How did people learn about the resignation? Perhaps Mr. Pussyman went to the newspapers to discuss Mr. Greenbaum's moves? Oh, no. It gets better.
Mr. Greenbaum published a blog post where he gloated over the resignation: "Post a vulgar comment at work, lose your job." Did Greenbaum think his readers would revel in his glory? Yes, he really did. He thought that readers would be excited to learn that Post-Dispatch editor's will call employers over blog comments.
He thought his readers would be pleased to learn that Mr. Greenbaum violated the Post-Dispatch's privacy policy. The policy is broad: "We will not share individual user information with third parties unless the user has specifically approved the release of that information."
One need not have a law degree to realize that Mr. Greenbaum shared user information with third parties without the commenter's consent. Nevertheless, Mr. Greenbaum has denied violating the policy.
Even more remarkable is how Mr. Greenbaum reacted to the (predictable, to anyone who understands social media, anyway) push back. Readers were furious that Mr. Greenbaum got a man fired for posting a comment at his blog. Shocked at the push back, Greenbaum posted on his Twitter account: "Amazed at the readers who comment in defense of a jackass who posted a vulgarity on our site -- and lost his job."
That Greenbaum was amazed by the reader reaction indicates that he is a fraud. Greenbaum has no understanding of social media. His every paycheck is theft. That Mr. Greenbaum sees no irony in using "jackass" in a post criticizing someone for being vulgar reveals him to be a pathetic hypocrite.
