Two incidents have official Ottawa buzzing about “social media” and the far reaching implications of these new communications tools:

First, the Yes Men pulled off a complex stunt aimed at confusing the Canadian delegation – it worked by leveraging common internet behavior and trust of major media; much of the media focus has been on the hoax itself – thereby drawing attention to Canada’s laggard status on climate solutions. It worked so well, the Prime Ministers press secretary Dmitri Soudas pounced on the wrong environmentalist and made himself look like a fool.

Second, a photoshop contest over at Liberal.ca has gone awry. As Taber and O’Malley report the official opposition site posting a manipulated image of the PM getting shot, well this simply made the Liberals look like fools.

Neither of these stories are really about social media - oh, sure they have aspects where social media/internet communications helped along the story – these stories are really about unforced staff errors. The worst kind of political staffing mistake.

Soudas made an unforced error in screaming at a well known activist. And, the Liberals made an unforced error by failing to see that assassination isn’t funny. Apologies all around and move on folks: social media isn’t the problem. Foolish behavior is.