yet another person learns the Twitter lesson

There have been a number of stories in the news of late about people who are having to pay the consequences of having an open Twitter account and then just tweeting things they really should not be. They don't seem to get that if their account is not protected, then ANYONE can read what they tweet. It's no different than writing a blog or posting a public comment to a message board or something like that. If your account is protected, then you just have to be sure of who you allow to read your stream, but if it's open - you're fair game to everyone.

Mark Cuban is owner of the NBA basketball team Dallas Mavericks, and he apparently [sic] is on Twitter. After a recent defeat by the Mavericks to the Denver Nuggets, he tweeted a complaint about a non-call by the officials.

The NBA is notorious for being super-uptight about ANY comments even mildly critical of officials. Someone must have been following him who eventually relayed it to the league, because Cuban was fined $25,000 for his comment about the officiating. Frankly, I think it's ridiculous that the NBA has such a thin skin when it comes to comments about officiating. I can't think of another professional sport where it's like that - certainly not baseball or football. And it's not like basketball officials are immune to making mistakes or missing calls - they're human after all. I guess Cuban would have been fined if he'd made that comment during a live or print interview, so that's probably why he was also fined for saying it over Twitter. And with a public figure like that, you wouldn't expect his Twitter feed to be protected.

When it comes down to it, $25,000 isn't that much money to someone like Mark Cuban. But there seem to be more and more examples of people getting into trouble because of what they openly tweet.

And yes, my Twitter stream is protected. And yes, I'd get into all kinds of trouble with the stuff I tweet if I had an open stream. But then, that's why I have it protected!