What did we learn in `13?

'Tis the season for regret and recriminations. Let's not let this year pass without taking stock of social media's epic fails — and the lessons we can carry into 2014:

5) While having a private conversation in public, you could be live-tweeted. This lesson comes to us care of the guy who chronicled every detail of his neighbor's awful breakup, which he overheard on their Brooklyn roof deck and broadcast to thousands of followers under the apt hashtag #Roofbreakup. The sad duo had clearly learned nothing from retired Gen. Michael Hayden. The former National Security Agency head also had his entire confidential conversation — this one with a journalist — live-tweeted by a fellow passenger, a former MoveOn.org activist sitting behind him on an Acela train.

4) When in doubt, hire a qualified social media manager. This lesson comes to us care of beloved Boston-based restaurant delivery service Foodler, which posted a picture on Facebook of a mouse with a meat cleaver strapped to his back in a "name that caption" contest. Animal-loving customers were not amused. Martha Stewart's penchant for tweeting awful-looking food photos — making even the tastiest holiday ham look hellacious — shows that even a domestic diva could use some professional help. For City Councilor-elect Michelle Wu, it was her husband's angry tweet — amid a controversy over her support for a conservative city council prez — that she didn't need her progressive base. All epic fails that could've been avoided with a social media manager.

3) Viral does not equal true. From TV producer Elan Gale's made-up airplane fight with rude fellow passenger "Diane" to the far-fetched tale that one of the Boston Marathon bombers was a missing Brown student, 2013 was a banner year for Internet falsehoods. Reporters at sites like Buzzfeed fell for them. Let's be more discerning in 2014.

2) Make sure your password isn't "password." Having a generic password is like asking to be hacked, if the throngs of Facebook and Twitter users who had their accounts compromised are any indication. I suspect that this is why someone was able to briefly turn Burger King's Twitter account into a pro-McDonald's sideshow in February.

1) Ignore crowdsourced "investigations." In another marathon-related gaffe, several self-appointed Internet sleuths saw fit to post pictures of the crowd taken prior to the attacks and speculate irresponsibly about which people in the pictures were the bombers. Well-intentioned, but wrongheaded and dangerously damaging for the innocent spectators who were racially profiled and saw their pictures circulated as potential suspects with no evidence. It was social media at its worst. It shouldn't ever happen again.