How To Protect Yourself On Social Media | Learn From Other Nurses Mistakes

If you’re my age, you remember the days of the internet’s infancy. You remember being amazed and shocked by the many amazing things you could do and see. The internet was a wonder, a magical place with few limitations and you had the power to connect with friends old and new instantly. The world-wide-web of today is somewhat more complicated than it was 20 years ago. There are dark alleys and terrible trolls lurking in every corner.

Joshua Strickland RN

Nurses in every clinical environment use social media and post bits and pieces of their lives on the web for the world to see. Sounds harmless, but sometimes, these posts come back to bite us in the ass. Sometimes these posts go viral and there are people in the world, presumably with little else to do, ready to pounce and forever alter the lives of those sharing online.

Doxxing is the act of searching for and publishing private or identifying information about (a particular individual) on the Internet, typically with malicious intent. Obviously, it is important to understand that reporting something that is ACTUALLY (keyword here, guys) harmful to others or puts them at risk isn’t the same as doxxing. Doxxing sets out to harm, not to protect. If you see something on the internet that truly harms others, report it to the authorities. They can do the research and determine what course of action to take.

You may have seen my piece on YouTube regarding nurse Joshua Strickland. Joshua had only posted a video about his first day on the job. He had blurred out the identifying information, he thought. He casually mentioned that a patient had told him to “F*ck off and die.” He didn’t reveal any personal information about that patient, but he lost his job because someone saw a tiny logo on his badge and tracked it back to his brand new employer.

Another nurse, named Rita, posted a photo of herself and President Trump on her personal Facebook account. She was being honored by the President for saving the lives of people injured by a gunman in a mass shooting. There was nothing political about her post A Twitter user called “Time to Impeach 45!” edited the photo to include the face of Hitler and posted it, along with the phone numbers of the charge nurse and various other hospital personnel encouraging other users to contact them and demand that she be terminated. She also received death threats. Rita later deleted her Facebook and had to be escorted in and out of her hospital of employment.

Doxxing has become a kind of sport to the trolls of the internet. They are like the tattletales in grade school classrooms, silently watching and waiting for an opportunity to raise their hand and report you to the teacher. You might be posting a cute little video of yourself on Facebook and forget that you’ve got your nametag on. Perhaps you said something snarky about a patient, not naming names, not breaking HIPAA, but you said it. Your fellow nursing friends appreciate your humor, your attempt to make light of the situation you are in and they share this video, and, eventually, it ends up in the hand of one of those tattletales. Then your life spins out of control.

Nurses and casual readers, I implore you to protect yourself.

• Before you post anything on the internet, even if you think it is innocent, make sure that you have limited the amount of personal information you are releasing.

• Make sure you have blurred out anything that might lead someone to your identity.

• Use a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to hide your IP address so the trolls can’t track you through your digital footprint.

• Ask Google and other search engines to remove links to content that you don’t want traced back to you.

• Post under a pseudonym.

• Change your passwords regularly.

• Never post where you work on your social media pages

The most important thing about creative self-expression is that it helps us relieve stress. Even if we must be especially cautious, it is beneficial to our sanity to be able to laugh and unload the stresses of our day. Keep laughing friends. Don’t let the trolls win.

Time To Take Your Morning Memes! 15 Funny Nursing Memes

A Tik Tok Nightmare! One Nurses Story

Ryan Stewart Allen RN

Tik Tok is one of the most downloaded apps in the world. It almost seems silly- just 15 second long videos on any subject the creator decides. You’ll see a lot of people just dancing or singing and some are recording little poems or snip-its of prose. Somehow, though, the app and the 15 seconds of content created can make a HUGE impact in the lives of its users.

You see, many people are using Tik Tok to say important things. They are making commentary on their living situations, working situations, governmental policies, and even the current pandemic. Everyone has something to say and this platform allows them to reach a broad audience and that is a truly wonderful or truly dangerous ability.

Nurses are part of this growing trend and plenty of people have opinions on that. You can hop on YouTube and search for Nurse Tik Toks and you’ll find nurses dancing in hospital hallways and making statements about the current state of healthcare from their point of view. And you’ll also find people asking the question of whether this is a good thing or not.

By all accounts, the vast majority of Tik Tok videos by nurses that I’ve seen are there to inspire and educate. Nurses operate under difficult and strenuous circumstances day in and day out. They go to work every day not knowing what to expect and knowing to expect the worst all at the same time. They use this form of expression to find humor in the situations they face daily and, sometimes, that humor tends more toward the macabre.

Therein lies the problem. The non-medical citizens of the world can sometimes find the content nurses create to be callous and uncaring. They, themselves, are not faced with tragedy and trauma as frequently, so they are sometimes shocked by the levity nurses apply to these situations, and so, the public sometimes responds with anger and frustration at that which they don’t understand.

Beyond the public response, there is the professional expectation. Hospitals and corporate healthcare facilities have had their own negative responses to the use of social media by their staff. Sometimes, nurses are reprimanded or even terminated for using social media, even if it is on their own time, like breaks or lunches. Somehow, the administration feels that it could shine a negative light on their facility for their staff to act a little silly from time to time. Nurses, not realizing the “harm” have lost their livelihoods for posting on social media and trying to seek some form of stress relief from the anguish of caring for those who are injured and possibly dying.

I recently interviewed a nurse named Ryan Stewart Allen RN. Ryan recently had been terminated from her job because of her postings on Tik Tok. This particular nurse had filmed several Tik Tok’s in the past and truly enjoyed this new social media outlet. Most of these had been filmed in the comfort of her own home and were usually silly clips of her lip syncing songs. As she got more comfortable using Tik Tok, her and a friend at work decided to film a video together. According to Ryan, these were filmed on their lunch break. During our interview she stated, “I didn’t feel I was breaking any rules because these videos were captured during my personal time”. Unfortunately the administration felt differently. They found this video in poor taste and terminated Ryan effective immediately. Most nurses who saw the Tik Tok knew that it was nursing humor and merely two nurses letting off steam and joking around. The hospital felt that it could be interpreted differently and that people who viewed these videos might thing that these nurses were being serious in the jokes that they made.

I asked Ryan why she decided to reach out to me for an interview. Ryan stated, “Because I want someone else to learn from my mistake. I hope that if one person hears my story and learns from it, then maybe I may save someone’s job”. In my eyes that is one of the bravest things that someone can do. Not only did Ryan learn from her own mistake, but she wants others to learn from what she did. That is what nursing is all about. We all should lift each other up. When asked if she would every even post a photo of herself while at work on social media, she quickly responded, “I will never post on social media at work ever again. Not even if I am in the car or in the parking lot”.

Ryan Stewart Allen RN

The hard part in my opinion about this topic is that at times there are conflicting messages sent to nurses from hospital administrators. I have seen some hospitals actually encourage the nurses to film these videos during down time. Some hospitals love this as it is free publicity for the hospital. Many administrators also feel that at a minimum it brings the nurses together and lifts spirits. On the other side of the coin there are other hospitals who have strict policies about social media and this would never be tolerated in any way shape or form.

Professionalism in healthcare is a huge responsibility. Nurses have to protect the information they receive and the patients they serve. They are intimately familiar with the troubles their patients face with both their health and their daily lives. It is a heavy burden for an individual to carry, the worries and fears and stresses of the people they support, and while social media is a place to unload some of that burden, it might not be the right place, all of the time.

The field of nursing is complex and difficult to maneuver, and we are all trying to do it right. We want to care for our patients and we want to still be able to laugh and smile at the end of the day. We want to celebrate the successes and mourn the losses but still be whole for our families and friends. There are bad apples in nursing, certainly. There are bad people in every field. But these bad apples don’t spoil the bunch of us. We truly want to be the best and care for our patients with whole hearts, but sometimes, we have to find a way to lay down that burden. Social media might not be the answer, but every person is different and needs different options to do that in the best way for them.

My advice… Just stay away from it. Unless you have administrators right next to you helping film the Tik Tok it is just not worth the risk. You get one complaint and that could be the end of your job.