Public responsibility within one's sphere of influence

I was just reading, with great sadness, the news stories of the young boys who have hung themselves in imitation of videos they've seen of Saddam Hussein's hanging. The thing that strikes me is how our communication can have meaning vastly different from what we intended by it. I'm sure the news services had no inkling that their broadcasts could have these results; the fact that their intentions were completely different from the effects on these young lives, now tragicaly cut short, is of no comfort to the families now in mourning.

This strikes me particularly sharply because of having recently written words that were taken at face value, rather than being received in the joking manner I intended. It isn't the readers' fault that they didn't know my intentions. The words were pretty strong, so why would a reader who doesn't really know me take them at anything other than face value?

Now I pray that I haven't created a problem that was a lot bigger than the joke I intended my words to be.