

Adam Orth leaving Microsoft proves personal Twitter accounts are dead - unfasten
http://penny-arcade.com/report/article/your-tweets-are-always-on-adam-orth-leaving-microsoft-proves-personal-twitt

======
eykanal
I'm missing why this is news to anyone. Almost any large company will have
language like this in their ethics guidelines. Take this random company, for
example [1]:

> Never give the impression you are speaking on behalf of Biogen Idec in any
> personal communication, including blogs, social networking sites, chat rooms
> or bulletin boards.

Others are similar [2][3][4] (search for "behalf of" in the pdfs). This google
search will show you dozens of similar documents [5]

This is completely normal. What Orth did was something that no employee should
ever do, and particularly not someone in his fairly high position.

[1]: [http://www.biogenidec.com/Files/Filer/USA/pdfs/Request-
Web-C...](http://www.biogenidec.com/Files/Filer/USA/pdfs/Request-Web-COBC.pdf)

[2]:
[http://www.demasterblenders1753.com/Global/Attachments_Gover...](http://www.demasterblenders1753.com/Global/Attachments_Governance/Code%20of%20conduct.pdf)

[3]: <http://www.babcock.com/about/ethics/pdf/codeofconduct.pdf>

[4]: <http://www.k2m.com/en_us/conduct>

[5]:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=Unless+authorized%2C+do+not+...](https://www.google.com/search?q=Unless+authorized%2C+do+not+give+the+impression+that+you+are+speaking+on+behalf+of)

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
It would be hugely ironic if those ethics guidelines were private/confidential
and you got into trouble for posting them on a public forum.

~~~
eykanal
Ha! I thought about it, and hoped that the fact that it's publicly available
on the internet and indexed by Google would clear me of the problem; I'm not
posting it, I'm just linking to it. Still, who knows...

EDIT: You made me paranoid enough to edit it out and replace it with one of
the dozens of other identical examples on the internet. You have my thanks.

------
TrevorJ
The point this article seems to be missing is, it was his personal opinion
about something he was also involved in professionally. He didn't say
something unpopular about fly fishing, or jenga, he was stating his opinion
about products and services that the public assumes he has a hand in
designing. Not only that, but he was fairly abrasive in the way he chose to
respond to backlash. Telling people to 'deal with it' just isn't a smart way
to go about it when you are (rightly or wrongly) seen as speaking for a
company.

~~~
gm
Agreed. To me this is a story of lack of professional common sense. When this
guy spoke, he spoke as someone with (implied) inside knowledge of both his
employer and his industry.

He should have either stressed he did not have inside knowledge and this was
his personal opinion, or he should have said nothing. The problem with the
first option is that he did have inside knowledge.

Put another way, if he had said something that had affected stock price, he
would probably face criminal charges.

That's reason enough to shut the heck up, bite his lip, and let the internet
be wrong. All of us with inside knowledge about our employers (specially if
our employer is a public company) do that routinely.

~~~
shurcooL
> He should have either stressed he did not have inside knowledge and this was
> his personal opinion, or he should have said nothing. The problem with the
> first option is that he did have inside knowledge.

All in under 140 characters?

~~~
georgemcbay
Sure, he could have easily inserted "I am not speaking for Microsoft".

Just one tweet saying that before the stream of stupidity would have made
things a lot better, though he probably shouldn't have commented on the
situation at all on an account identified as belonging to a Microsoft employee
and he especially shouldn't have been such a huge jerk in his responses (eg.
his why would I live there? comment, etc).

In the grand scheme of things, I think he's probably getting dumped on a bit
too much and is taking some flack for becoming the public face for a poor
decision (always-on console) that I believe Microsoft as a company fully
intended to deliver on(though they may attempt to change course on this if
possible given the backlash). But he really did show some poor judgement
throughout the whole thing.

------
pyre
"Personal Twitter accounts are dead" is a bit over-the-top.

* He didn't make inflammatory comments that were un-related to work. He was directly commenting on a rumoured feature of an upcoming product that he is over seeing.

* He made no attempt to distinguish this as a personal Twitter account. On the contrary, he 'prominently' displayed his employer and position.

* There's no reason that he couldn't have had a personal Twitter account without identifying information (i.e. pseudo-anonymous).

~~~
hayksaakian
You seems surprised that the title was link bait, I assure you it was quite
intentional.

------
DanBC
He's an adult, and an experienced professional, and had been working in the
job for a while.

Compare his situation with that of Paris Brown. She's 17, employed as a Youth
Consultant. Tweets she had written before she got that job, when she was just
14 (maybe 15) were found, and thus there was a pile on calling for her to lose
her job.

(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-kent-22070354>)

Some people supported her. Others didn't.

She left her job.

(<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-22085693>)

Her tweets were really offensive; but kids are stupid and it's a shame we
can't let children make mistakes (and then learn from them).

I guess people are going to be more careful with their interview process from
now on.

EDIT: in general I tend to see anything that someone writes as their personal
opinion, separate from their employer's position, unless it's a statement from
the company on headed paper (or an official account); or unless the person has
said "this is what the company says". It's weird to me to link someone's views
to their company.

~~~
mhurron
> in general I tend to see anything that someone writes as their personal
> opinion, separate from their employer's position, unless it's a statement
> from the company on headed paper (or an official account)

This is actually important in this case. (BTW I do not work for Apple, never
have).

Lets say Apple has a new Mac Pro coming out. I tweet the following

Mhurron: The new Mac Pro performs like shit.

No one thinks anything of it really. However if the following happens:

Mhurron(Product Development Apple): The new Mac Pro performs like shit.

Apple has a problem (which is quickly going to become mine) and what I just
said looks like more then just some crazy guys ramblings. This is what
happened here. This guy clearly listed his position at Microsoft then
proceeded to comment and argue with people over a product he had direct
knowledge of. That looks like more then just arguing about personal
preference.

I too hate the idea that someone could take my opinions as official position
of the company I work for, but at the same time I don't go out of my way to
brand myself as working for that company either.

------
aaronbrethorst
When I joined Microsoft in 2003[1], I was told very clearly to never write
anything I wouldn't want to see published on the front page of the New York
Times.

I feel bad for Adam that he was canned, but _he should not have been making
news, especially in an inflammatory fashion, about an unannounced Microsoft
product._

[1] I should also mention that I left in 2007

~~~
lake99
> I was told very clearly to never write anything I wouldn't want to see
> published on the front page of the New York Times.

This is what I recommend to everyone. We can't trust Twitter, Google+,
Facebook, etc. to keep our secrets for us. I mark everything "public", as a
reminder to myself to carefully consider what I write there. I have anonymous
ids to say things I can't be held legally accountable for having said.

~~~
aaronbrethorst
Incidentally, this is why every account I create has my full name. It's a good
reminder to me to always think before I hit "reply"

~~~
illuminate
It's good to self-censor, but you can't always predict what others might be
outraged by, take personally, or want to retaliate for. Plenty of internet
persons aren't well off.

------
nsxwolf
I think in general we have a problem of deifying the concept of free speech
(everyone loves the First Amendment), while at the same time we get our kicks
censoring everyone whenever we get the chance (while gleefully pointing out
the truth that the First Amendment restricts only the government).

This is a real problem. I don't think we value free speech as much as we say
we do. If we did, we'd tolerate a LOT more before pulling the censorship card.

 _That said_ , canning Orth was a no-brainer. He set himself up as the
ultimate anti-evangelist for the next Xbox console. He seriously undermined a
product that hasn't been announced yet - this after the announced PS4 details
had already positioned Sony as the "good guys".

~~~
slantyyz
Also, aside from NDAs-- most people willingly consent to limiting their free
speech as it relates to their employer when they sign their employment
contract.

The typical boilerplate employment contract usually includes easily overlooked
clauses that cite publicly embarrassing or disparaging the employer and/or its
partners, customers, etc. as cause for termination.

------
TDL
"You can’t separate your work from your rhetoric these days..."

How exactly is this a new thing? We are free to say what we want, it does not
mean we are free from the consequences of our statements.

~~~
obviouslygreen
Having "rhetoric" in the first place puts you squarely in the public eye when
you're in a high-profile position. If you can't keep that out of your public
presence -- personal or professional -- then you're taking a risk, and not
being aware of that just isn't an excuse at that point.

------
cykho
This is sad, but true. You can't ask the public to draw a line between your
personal and professional life. A good rule of thumb I was taught that if you
wouldn't want to see it on the cover of the New York Times then don't write
it!

~~~
smacktoward
The problem here isn't the notion of personal Twitter accounts. It's Twitter
itself.

Twitter is designed to be encourage users to post things without thinking too
hard about it. So they do, and sometimes that results in them saying stupid
things that they would never have said if there had been even a tiny speed
bump along the way to force them to think about it. Then they get in trouble
if they're lucky, or lose their jobs/suffer social ostracism if they're not so
lucky.

This is nothing new, it's been happening for as long as Twitter has been
around. I can remember it happening to political pundit Ezra Klein back in
2008: [http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/is-ezra-klein-in-
troub...](http://www.mediabistro.com/fishbowldc/is-ezra-klein-in-trouble-at-
msnbc_b10038)

The problem is that Twitter's design is at odds with its actual nature. It's
designed to feel breezy and conversational, but it's really about _publishing_
, with all the permanence and exposure that implies. If you say something dumb
in a conversation, it floats away on the wind unless someone else involved
makes a concerted effort to tell people about it. If you say something dumb on
Twitter, the ease of re-tweeting can make it blow up into a Big Thing in
minutes.

If people keep shooting themselves in the foot with significant real-world
consequences while using your application, year after year, it seems
reasonable that at some point people would start wondering whether it was the
fault of the application instead of the users. But Twitter apparently has not
reached that point yet.

(If you want a more fleshed-out version of this argument, I wrote one here a
couple of months ago: <http://jasonlefkowitz.net/2013/02/i-kind-of-hate-
twitter/>)

~~~
TrevorJ
I don't buy this argument. Communicating verbally requires far less friction
than posting to Twitter does, and yet professionals have managed to not say
everything that crosses their mind when it isn't appropriate.

~~~
incision
I think the parent addressed this pretty clearly.

"If you say something dumb in a conversation, it floats away on the wind
unless someone else involved makes a concerted effort to tell people about
it."

~~~
yuhong
That don't make Twitter not a good idea. The problems needs to be fixed
properly.

------
phren0logy
His comments (note the plural) on Twitter suggest some poor decision making.
Who is to say that this wasn't merely the straw that broke the camel's back?

~~~
themstheones
Seems more like a case of the cement truck that broke the (possibly already
strained) camel's back.

------
pacaro
One part of the issue that I haven't seen addressed is the confusion caused by
his job title. Much play is made out of "Creative Director" - all this means
is that he was _A_ Creative Director, but the story is spun that he was _The_
Creative Director.

I have no idea how many "Creative Directors" Microsoft has, or how many in the
XBox division, but in general at MS "Director" in your job title usually just
means that you are at a level above senior (otherwise known as principal) and
(sometimes) are a manager of managers.

So among other things, this is collateral damage caused by title inflation.

------
geon
Companies really need do be less uptight and more grown up about the web.
People share their opinions all the time, even _gasp_ on the web. Get over it.

I recall that MS employees can blog at microsofts domain, but there is a
disclaimer that opinions expressed in blog posts not necessarily reflect the
policies of MS. That is a more suitable way to handle things.

Twitter isn't even connected to MS. Seriously.

~~~
mirkules
Having employees be free of any consequences of what they say on the web (or
otherwise) is a bad idea. Do you want your employees telling your customers or
competitors what your next product feature is?

Uncontrolled PR is an all around bad idea, and it's why many companies
explicitly forbid saying _anything_ about the company.

~~~
geon
Obviously, keeping company secrests is important. That goes without saying.
But that wasn't what happened, was it? An employee expressed his personal
prefeerence for a technology that may, or may not be part of the netx gen
consoles. (And everyone have been anticipatin this for years anyway.)

------
minimaxir
Also, remember what happened to Adria Richards and her explicit mentions of
her employment at SendGrid. In both Orth's case and her's, they greatly
damaged customer trust for their employer, which resulted in firings.

~~~
corin_
They're slightly similar cases but still pretty different. Adria Richards was
a spokesperson for the company, that was her official role, Adam Orth was not.
And despite that, Orth's comments hurt his employer because people took them
as official, whereas Richards' hurt SendGrid not for that reason, but because
people disagreed with her actions and therefore wanted her employer to take
action against her - i.e. the backlash was to punish her, not because people
directly blamed SendGrid.

------
zenogais
This seems to be a problem with social media in general. It doesn't encourage
us to be our authentic selves but instead forces us to constantly be only who
are allowed to be under scrutiny from others (usually strangers) - not the
same thing. The fear is that with so much more of our lives getting
scrutinized, the project of becoming an individual might become less and less
possible.

~~~
ttrreeww
Just create an anonymous twitter account.

~~~
yuhong
Not the proper fix.

~~~
ttrreeww
If you show the world you are an a __ __*, you should expect that to effect
you in real life...

~~~
peejaybee
And heaven help you if you act like a dijkstra.

------
gmisra
IMO, the most interesting thing going on here is whether Microsoft will
incorporate the backlash against his comments as meaningful product feedback.
We don't know if the feature is being seriously considered or not, but if it
ends up being included, that'll say a lot about how much MS values those
opinions.

~~~
danielweber
If video game companies have learned anything from the relation between "rage
on the Internets" and "sales figures," it's that they are positively
correlated.

------
rquirk
Somewhat amusingly, this troll on the debian-user mailing list predicted that
Orth would be "fired". Let's see if he starts making commits to Tux Racer :-)

<https://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2013/04/msg00265.html>

~~~
nivla
>this troll on the debian-user mailing list predicted that Orth would be
"fired".

I don't follow the mailing list but are these "reddit-like" conversations
common/tolerated on a mailing list?

Off Topic: Is debian.org using a self signed SSL? It popped a warning on my
browser.

------
siamore
Well after seeing this [0] and this post [1] from the other guy, I think that
while he might have done nothing wrong, he did get a lot of attention, just
the wrong kind [2].

[0]<http://i.imgur.com/Na2Xkh0.png>

[1]<https://twitter.com/manveerheir/status/320064992080691200>

[2]theVerge [http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/5/4185938/adam-orth-speaks-
on...](http://www.theverge.com/2013/4/5/4185938/adam-orth-speaks-on-required-
internet-connection-for-durango-rumors), Neowin etc,

EDIT: removed wrong info about Sony's CEO responding to the original tweet,
thanks @maximilianburke

~~~
maximilianburke
> even Sony's CEO took a jab at his post.

I'm pretty sure the Twitter account @KazHiraiCEO is a parody.

------
badclient
Everything personal is dead once its negatively impacting your employer
because of your poor judgement.

------
seivan
I am happy he left/got fired. The guy does not belong in gaming.

------
peterkelly
Moral of the story: Don't be honest about your opinions on twitter. Just
parrot whatever your current employer wants people to think all of their
employees believe.

~~~
pseudonym
Better yet, don't tie your social accounts to your real name unless you're
going to be professional on them.

Think of it like the difference between chilling on the beach with shorts and
talking shit over beer vs. chilling a the beach in your $company uniform and
name tag and talking shit over beer. If you're going to do the latter, you
best hope that you know and trust all the people you're shitting with.

~~~
peterkelly
One of the many reasons why social media is overhyped, and private
conversations are as valuable as they always have been :)

------
joyeuse6701
The lack of forgiveness that the internet has shown to individuals is
frightening, (insert biblical persecution allegory here).

------
leoh
It's less nefarious than this. If most people read your twitter because you
are a friend, then it's a personal account. If most people read your twitter
because you work for some company, then your twitter account is not personal.
That simple. Know your audience.

------
smackfu
This case only proves that posting about work stuff on your personal Twitter
account now makes it your alternate work Twitter account.

------
paddy_m
I hope to have a colorful enough online profile to prevent myself from ever
getting a boring, stifling job.

------
kuluktunkun
I guess that's nothing, compared to what'd happen if he was _against_ the
ideas of own company.

------
joshguthrie
Welcome to 1984.

------
hydralist
Not if you aren't popular! Aha!

------
shmerl
Somehow I doubt this will improve the situation with DRM on consoles. I.e.
with him, or without him, MS will use DRM.

