Thanks to social media, there are an ever-increasing variety of ways for us to say things we can’t take back – because people can screen grab them. Thankfully, a new app called FireMe! may be able to keep you out of harm’s way when your tweeting things you shouldn’t be (or if someone gets ahold of your account and tries to do the same).
This useful tool was developed by researchers in Germany at the University of Hannover who realized that despite the “social” in social media, people don’t realize that what you say on Twitter really is public no matter how they’d argue against the point. If you don’t believe the creators of the app, there’s a fire hose of tweets from people who obviously hate their jobs. And to hit home the point that tweets are public, you can watch the steady stream of people hating on their bosses in a very public feed that FireMe! has provided.
Every time someone tweets about their awful job or awful bosses, the app automatically flags the tweet and sends the perp an @reply notifying them of what you’ve just done and asking you to reconsider the tweet (at least it’s supposed to; when we tried it, we ended up getting a notification on the FireMe! site, but didn’t receive an @reply). You’ll also be directed to your FireMeter! Score. This score gauges the chances of your being fired in general by looking at any negative tweets related to your job, and your rate of swearing on Twitter.
As ridiculous as it sounds – you’d think people have common sense – 4,304 FireMe! tweets were sent out in the last three weeks. 249 of these people deleted the tweets within two hours. The highest volume of job haters were found during one week in June when over 22,000 tweets hating on jobs or bosses were published. Blame the summer sun for the office-related anguish.
If you’re worried, FireMe! offers the chance for you to manually find out your chances of getting fired if your boss ever found out about your Twitter account. You can also check other user’s accounts as well, if you’re the one in the managerial position.
Amusingly, FireMe! comes with a leaderboard that displays the people on Twitter that have the highest chances of getting fired. Right now some guy that goes by @hatchet_koolaid is sitting pretty with a 181 percent chance of getting fired.
