Simon Jones: Social media distancing

It doesn’t happen too often, but I feel sorry for people at the General Optical Council. In particular, its communications and social media teams. The tone of the grief it receives on Twitter for some sort of alleged bias or incompetence somewhere really makes you wince. As does the frequency at which the often-nameless tweeters click the submit button.

There’s a right way and a wrong way to hold individuals and businesses to account. I saw a great example of the wrong way recently, when an anonymous Twitter user tweeted the GOC a screenshot of an email from one of the multiples telling staff that they must overbook clinics to allow for patient no shows. ‘Ghost clinics’ for the unfamiliar. The user also posted a Notes app picture of the reasons why they felt the multiple was contravening GOC standards.