Friday a prank was pulled involving a tragic plane crash that has resulted in at least 3 deaths.

From MSN: On Friday, an anchor for Oakland, Calif., station KTVU read a list of the supposed names of the pilots of the South Korean carrier on its noon broadcast after an employee apparently called the NTSB seeking to verify them.

Turns out the names were not real, but a prank.  While it is not clear who originated the prank, at appears that an intern at the National Transportation Safety Board was involved.

We’ve seen stupidity reign online.

It’s all around us, it’s sometimes hard to ignore.

Sometimes it’s funny, sometimes it’s offensive.

The question is why this happens. Sometimes, it’s due to a lack of standards, or not enforcing those standards.

Of course there is also a lot of miscommunication and lack of communication about those standards.

I am responsible for the social media communication to over 100,000 folks on Facebook, plus thousands of others on Twitter, Pinterest and our multiple blogs.  There is a trust factor that my company has that I will not do anything offensive, and I gladly take that responsibility.

Beyond the social media world is the face to face world.

You want to be sure that anyone who works for you is presenting a positive image of you and your organization.

It’s about having the right people in place who understand the professionalism of your organization and are not going slip up.

How do you, (or do you) keep professional standards in a casual world for you organization?