Has Twitter become the new company email?

Hi everyone,

When we saw the above Tweet last night as we were preparing for the show, more than a few of us in the newsroom thought NDP MP Pat Martin's Twitter account had been hacked. (We crossed out the expletives; this is a family show after all).

We doubly thought he'd been hacked after this very to-the-point response from Martin's account, when someone called him out on his language:

But no, Martin's account wasn't hacked, in fact, a follow-up tweet from him clarified, he was just "p---ed off." (By the way, he also channeled Bart Simpson when telling another Tweep who criticized him to "Eat my shorts".)

You probably know the background behind his salty choice of words by now. If not, take a moment to click on and read the news story.

Just moments ago in an interview with CTV News Channel, Martin admitted his words were "vulgar." But he said he was simply venting after the Conservative-dominated House of Commons voted to shut down debate on the federal budget bill last night.

When asked by host Tasha Kheiriddin whether it was fair for people to expect a higher standard of communication from politicians, especially on a widely-used social media platform like Twitter, Martin replied:

"We don't heckle anymore, we don't carry on as we were in previous Parliament. But etiquette on Twitter is still evolving. I was expressing a genuine frustration of being denied the right to do my job. It was a genuine frustration -- I didn't expect the reaction I got."

But Martin's hardly the first public figure to be taken by surprise when a heat-of-the-moment, 140-character (or-less) Tweet went out, spread like wildfire and came back to singe him.

He's not the first to throw a tantrum and pay the price.

He told News Channel he should have realized his Tweet wasn't going to stay in his ‘Private Universe' of followers. After all, what happens in Twitter -- doesn't stay in Twitter.

He described his language as "industrial" -- adding that he's heard reaction from people who told him it was "refreshing" to hear a politician speak their minds, not sticking to "pabulum" talking points.

And he said the positive thing to come out of this is that people are also talking about the issue of the curtailed budget debate.

"240 billion dollars flying out the door without even the due diligence that we normally give it -- there's nothing normal about that," Martin said.

"I shouldn't have been quite so guttural -- or gutter -- in my language, but I don't apologize for the sentiment. It is a disgrace what's going on there. It's unprecedented in my 15 years as a Member of Parliament. I've never seen these guys steamroll over parliamentary procedure and make such a mockery of parliamentary procedure … and frankly by virtue of this one ill-advised Tweet, a lot of people are now talking about ‘...why do they invoke closure for every single bill they introduce?' And ‘where's the scrutiny and where's the oversight?'

All that without a single F-word.

I'm very curious to know your thoughts. Martin admitted he's unclear about Twitter etiquette. How candid should we be? Is Twitter the new company email?

See you tonight,

Lisa