Darren Bent famously burned his bridges at Tottenham Hotspur with a flurry of choice Tweets, and similar transgressions incurred fines this week for cricketers Kevin Pietersen and Dimitri Mascarenhas.
The cost to Pietersen and Mascarenhas was less severe than that incurred by Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice, who lost a sponsorship deal with car manufacturer Jaguar after posting a homophobic remark on Twitter following a recent rugby union test between Australia and South Africa.
So what is Leeds United's official policy on the use of internet sites that have a habit of drawing the most candid of comments?
The club's first-team squad has no presence at all on Twitter and their academy players are routinely advised about best-practice and security when using the likes of Facebook.
The potential nuisance of social networking, meanwhile, has been shown in the past month by the creation of a Facebook profile fraudulently claiming to be the personal page of goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.
Schmeichel's impersonator has gone so far as attempting to add members of United's staff as friends, without success. The give-away on the keeper's real site is the presence of his father, Peter.
The cost to Pietersen and Mascarenhas was less severe than that incurred by Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice, who lost a sponsorship deal with car manufacturer Jaguar after posting a homophobic remark on Twitter following a recent rugby union test between Australia and South Africa.
So what is Leeds United's official policy on the use of internet sites that have a habit of drawing the most candid of comments?
The club's first-team squad has no presence at all on Twitter and their academy players are routinely advised about best-practice and security when using the likes of Facebook.
The potential nuisance of social networking, meanwhile, has been shown in the past month by the creation of a Facebook profile fraudulently claiming to be the personal page of goalkeeper Kasper Schmeichel.
Schmeichel's impersonator has gone so far as attempting to add members of United's staff as friends, without success. The give-away on the keeper's real site is the presence of his father, Peter.