The potential to hinder future employment by the federal government might be an issue for students who share the WikiLeaks information via social media, according to a recent e-mail sent to some MSU students. The e-mail advised students against posting links to WikiLeaks on personal sites.

This warning comes at a time when jobs are scarce, tensions about classified information are high and social media is omnipresent. All of these factors make the e-mail warranted and helpful for students who, in their frenzy to share Twitter’s top-trending topics, might not have paused to consider the implications.

With 24-hour news coverage of WikiLeaks, accusations flying — mostly toward Assange — and thousands of documents to sort through, the site presents an entirely new dilemma in the modern realm of information “leakage.”

Students concerned with governmental job prospects should deal with the choice to post or not post with the same moral compass they would use in any other economic or socially tumultuous case.

One’s future should not, and most likely does not, rely on a single comment on a news article or WikiLeaks document. Sharing your view on the issue is not a crime. In fact, it might be an indicator of a well-informed citizen.

Although the e-mail offers good advice to all students about social media, the small number of students planning to apply for federal jobs should tread carefully.

There are many ways to handle the situation. It’s easy to prevent unauthorized access to any social media by changing privacy settings to hide posts or tweets from potential employers.

Another option simply is to remove previous posts and refrain from posting on the topic again. But by no means should any student or job applicant feel intimidated about the implications of posting WikiLeaks documents.

If the information is available to the public already, it is not wrong to further raise awareness of the issue or your opinion of it.

Even though some might ignore the caveat, thanks for the heads up, MSU.