Skip to main content

A Facebook Trick To Avoid MOS Teo Ser Luck's Recent Facebook Gaffe

MOS Teo said he didn't post the following quote on Facebook-
"I learnt that some workers prefer to sleep without a mattress as they are used to it back in their home country".
The above quote that appeared with the photo in the Ministry of Manpower Facebook Page came under heavy criticism for being insensitive to the plight of migrant workers in Singapore.

It created that much furore to have the story appear on BBC website.

The Ministry of Manpower has issued a statement that the post and the caption was put up by an unnamed Facebook admin.

The question of many, especially the government ministry, must be asking how to approve a post before it goes "live" on the Page.

Unfortunately, Facebook doesn't allow this function for any of the roles assigned for the Facebook Page.

You could put a post on draft and get the other key stakeholders to sign off in the comments, but once you publish the draft post, the comments can be seen. With this method, the Facebook admin or editor could be prone to further gaffes when they forget to put the post on draft first and every Likes get to see the comments not meant for public consumption.

As each stakeholder is an admin or editor, you probably won't know who approved what.

Another popular method is to email the draft post, but that doesn't have the Facebook feel to it. In a government agency, waiting for an email approval might take tons of back and forth replies and the post becomes yesteryear's news.

So what can you do to get stakeholders to sign off or approve a Facebook post before it goes "live"?

All the state secrets in a Secret Group

The trick I have learnt is that you create a Secret Group and add all the stakeholders as members.

If you are the Facebook Admin or Editor, you can post the photo with captions or post into this Secret Group and get the Group Members to sign off or approval. Once the post is approve, replicate it in the Page for public consumption.

The good thing about a group is that you can see the real names behind the sign off or approval.

Since the group is Secret, any comments are confined to the group. Of course, if somebody choose to screenshot the Secret communication, he/she should be threaten for violating the Official Secret Acts.

Another advantage of creating the Facebook Group is it gives the look and feel of a Facebook Page but only visible by members. The Facebook Group app is also available in the Apple App Store and Google Play Store and stakeholders can be notified when post is up and requires approval before posting on the page.

This simple trick could probably save Singapore ministers from future social media gaffes.

So, you're welcome!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How UOB's Paper Trail Amplifies IT Greatest Security Threat

UOB required you to do everything on paper. If you want to change your mobile number for your banking account with them or for your credit card, you need to fill up a form. Yet, this paper trail represented a potential security fail for the bank - Human Error. So a bitcoin expert walked into UOB to open a bank account. The bank employee had to print a form from a online pdf document to fill in this bitcoin expert's particulars. When it came to entering the bitcoin expert's email, that's when the forgotten art of handwriting was the most obvious of the digital generation. Wrote Robert Capodieci, My name is Roberto Capodieci, as most of you know. and my email address is very obvious to decode. It is not a p4l_l337_s0u1@gmail.com, but it is a more obvious roberto@capodieci.com, thing that, right after reading my name in the same form, should come out easy. Still, a data entry personnel of the UOB bank (or of a service provider the UOB bank uses) entered it as roberto
1 comment
Read more

NEL Train Fault Shouts Lack Of Crisis Communication

The North-East Line train fault of 11 April 2018 was my virgin experience of a rush hour train fault since I moved to Punggol. One would have thought that with the number of train faults experienced by the North-East Line operator, SBS Transit, they would have improved the communications and handling of train faults. However, my personal experience told another story. First, there were no announcements at the Punggol LRT stations of the train fault even though SBS Transit manages them. The train fault was reported as early as 7.10am as I had a friend who was also stuck in the train. I boarded the LRT at Coral Edge around 7.30am and I didn't hear of any announcement nor was there any signage to inform me o the train fault at Punggol Station. Second, the announcement kept saying that there would be a 15 minutes delay, but 15 minutes passed and the trains, on both side, wasn't moving. If the announcement would be more frank to say it will be a longer delay, commuters would
Post a Comment
Read more

Singapore radio personality in "hot soup" for reporting train delays based on Tweets?

Update - Hossan Leong has commented on this post to say " I'm not in trouble pls don't blow this out of proportion. Let it rest. It's getting silly. Thank you for your love and concern and I apologize for any misunderstanding." ~  Hossan Leong. Hossan Leong, a Singapore radio personality for The Gold Breakfast Show on Gold 90.5, was censured today for reporting on train delays on the Circle Line because he based the information on Tweets, rather than waiting for the official reports from the Circle Line operator, SMRT.  It is, however, unknown if the "warning" came from Mediacorp producers or SMRT. Tweeted Hossan Leong ,  OK...I reported it on air and now I'm getting into trouble for it?? The CC line is DOWN rite? I did nothing wrong rite? The SMRT Circle Line was reported to be down this morning during peak hours and started as early as 7am. However, local news only received official statement was received by the mainstream media at about 9
14 comments
Read more