DonsDeals Blog: Social Media Sobriety Test stops you from tweeting and Facebooking under the influence

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Friday, November 5, 2010

Social Media Sobriety Test stops you from tweeting and Facebooking under the influence

by Jay Hathaway (RSS feed) Nov 4th 2010 at 6:00PM

In this crazy world of constant Facebook and Twitter status updates, it's inevitable that some people are going to make the mistake of posting while drunk. A new browser extension called Social Media Sobriety Test aims to prevent you from doing that -- while you're at your computer and using Firefox or Chrome, anyway -- by making you take a series of tests before your status update can be sent.

You can set the hours during which the test will affect you, as well as which social media sites it will block. Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Flickr, YouTube and Tumblr are included by default, but you can also add a custom URL (in case you want to avoid posting drunken comments on your favorite tech blog, for example). The tests themselves are quite amusing, and based on real roadside sobriety tests. Follow the finger with your cursor, or you can't post, and Social Media Sobriety test will post for you, telling everyone you're too intoxicated to post right now (which, in some cases, might be worse than whatever you were actually going to post).

Social Media Sobriety Test is a real extension, but there's a reason it sounds a bit like a joke. It's a stunt by computer security firm Webroot, who created it to make the point that "we protect you from everything, even yourself." Well played, Webroot.

Tags: drunk, drunk posting, DrunkPosting, facebook, social media, social media sobriety test, social networking, SocialMedia, SocialMediaSobrietyTest, SocialNetworking, twitter