#Fail: Crying Wolf on Twitter Costs Man His Job, Reputation

While Twitter can be fun and games, the seriousness of a natural disaster requires us to be mindful of what we tweet. (Remember the Gilbert Gottfried AFLAC debacle?) One New York man is learning this the hard way this week following the poor decisions he made as Hurricane Sandy barreled up the East Coast.

While it is one thing to joke about victims as Gottfried learned, Shashank Tripathi's rumors contributed to chaos and confusion for those reporting the storm and could have contributed to the injury or death of his fellow New Yorkers.

Read More: What Not to Do on Twitter

Have a story idea for About.com Instant Messaging? Submit your story ideas about IM clients, chat rooms and webcam chats and let us know what we've been missing.