<p>German scientists have developed a new app which can possibly save you from getting fired by offering tongue-in-cheek warnings when you go too far with your complaints about your boss on Twitter.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Ricardo Kawase and colleagues at the University of Hanover in Germany created FireMe! as a way of reminding everyone how risky it can be to complain about your job publicly on Twitter.<br /><br />They found almost 22,000 people who had tweeted about their job or boss in a negative way in a single week last June.<br /><br />The team used an algorithm that looked for telltale phrases indicating someone had tweeted something negative about their boss or job, New Scientist reported.<br /><br />The user then received an automated alert tweet from FireMe! which rebuked them with the message: “Can you imagine if your boss gets to know that you said: ‘I hate my job so much’. You said that on Twitter and the whole world can see it!”<br /><br />Each alert also contained a link which, if followed, gave them their FireMeter! score, their chance of being fired as a percentage.<br /><br />It was calculated on the basis of how often they had mentioned their job negatively in the past 100 tweets and how often they swore.<br /><br />Out of a total of 4304 FireMe! alerts sent in the space of three weeks, 249 recipients had deleted the tweet when it was checked two hours later.<br /><br />A few also replied, from the relieved “Thanks buddy” to the nonchalant “they already know I hate my job. I’m in the process of leaving. Cheers for the heads up though!”<br /><br />An analysis found that people who tweeted negatively about their job generally tweeted more than regular users and had fewer followers than those who tweet positive things about their workplace.<br /><br />The team said that young or inexperienced users would certainly benefit from post-hoc privacy alerts and warnings like FireMe!<br /><br />“Potential dangers of personal, negatively loaded tweets remain abstract for most users, until the damage has been done,” they said.</p>
<p>German scientists have developed a new app which can possibly save you from getting fired by offering tongue-in-cheek warnings when you go too far with your complaints about your boss on Twitter.<br /><br /></p>.<p>Ricardo Kawase and colleagues at the University of Hanover in Germany created FireMe! as a way of reminding everyone how risky it can be to complain about your job publicly on Twitter.<br /><br />They found almost 22,000 people who had tweeted about their job or boss in a negative way in a single week last June.<br /><br />The team used an algorithm that looked for telltale phrases indicating someone had tweeted something negative about their boss or job, New Scientist reported.<br /><br />The user then received an automated alert tweet from FireMe! which rebuked them with the message: “Can you imagine if your boss gets to know that you said: ‘I hate my job so much’. You said that on Twitter and the whole world can see it!”<br /><br />Each alert also contained a link which, if followed, gave them their FireMeter! score, their chance of being fired as a percentage.<br /><br />It was calculated on the basis of how often they had mentioned their job negatively in the past 100 tweets and how often they swore.<br /><br />Out of a total of 4304 FireMe! alerts sent in the space of three weeks, 249 recipients had deleted the tweet when it was checked two hours later.<br /><br />A few also replied, from the relieved “Thanks buddy” to the nonchalant “they already know I hate my job. I’m in the process of leaving. Cheers for the heads up though!”<br /><br />An analysis found that people who tweeted negatively about their job generally tweeted more than regular users and had fewer followers than those who tweet positive things about their workplace.<br /><br />The team said that young or inexperienced users would certainly benefit from post-hoc privacy alerts and warnings like FireMe!<br /><br />“Potential dangers of personal, negatively loaded tweets remain abstract for most users, until the damage has been done,” they said.</p>