Social media, including blogging, Twitter, Facebook and the rest, have given people everywhere a chance to make themselves heard and express themselves like never before. It’s a new age of freedom of speech but your employer wants you to shut your cyber mouth.
Things are happening so fast on the Web that companies are both embracing social networking when it comes to promoting their products and services, and simultaneously kicking it to the curb when it comes to average working stiff’s privacy rights. Two recent cases, which I discuss below, involve workers who were using social networking and got a pink slip for their efforts; and it’s just the beginning of a Internet privacy battle that will rage in our nation’s workplaces in the months and years ahead.
We’re literally watching the world change before our eyes and it’s unclear if worker privacy will triumph or die, said Scott Peterson, a labor attorney for Tully Rinckey, a law firm that represents employees. “Because things are changing so quickly it’s becoming difficult for employers and employees to manage expectations of what is and is not allowed,” he explained. “The bigger issue is to what extent do employees have the right to express opinions?”
Before the Internet, you could write in your diary, or complain at a bar to coworkers about your boss, or be a member of a certain club, or contribute to obscure hobby journals, and no one, especially not your managers, would ever have to find out. Today, you tweet your anger at your boss, blog about scrapbooking, or join groups on Facebook, and you just never know who’ll find out. And, if your company asked for such things to be disclosed you might feel compelled to do so just in case your cyber antics get out there.
It’s great that your involved in the social networking revolution, and some employers even want you to use your digital reach to boost their businesses, but the reality is you can get canned for it.
* Marilyn Tagocon, 50, was allegedly fired for refusing to take down her historical fiction blog that she wrote under a pen name from her home in Piscataway, NJ. It was a strange move by her employer because her employer was JPMorgan Chase. Yes, a bank. Why a bank would care that one of its workers was writing about historical fiction is beyond me, but it’s a great example of a company flexing its workers-do-what-I-tell-them muscle in this fast-moving digital age they just don’t get. (I contacted Tagocon’s lawyer but have not heard back yet.)
* In another case, Dawnmarie Souza, an employee for an ambulance company in East Haven, CT, was allegedly fired because she complained about her manager on Facebook to other coworkers. The federal government is fighting the termination claiming she was engaged in protected speech because the law protects employees who talk about work conditions.
In both cases, legal experts have told me employers have a lot of latitude when it comes to terminating or demoting workers for what ever reason, especially non union workers or those you work in at-will states. But the explosion of social media has presented a host of challenges.
Many companies now have blanket policies that you just can’t say anything about your employer, or you have to clear all Internet musings with HR; or they say they reserve the right to take action if they don’t like what you’re doing out there in cyber space. But how will the courts deal with these issues when an employee fights any adverse action?
“The issue is where do you draw the line,” Peterson said about worker privacy.
“I don’t see blanket statements coming down,” he noted about future court decisions. “It will be more of ad hoc decisions.”
That’s a scary notion for employees who want to engage in social media but also want to keep their jobs.
What do you think? Should workers be allowed to keep the cyber conversations going without the fear of job loss? Or should employers have the discretion to fire employees for social media use?
January 20th, 2011 at 6:44 pm
Clearly there are individuals who could make the company look bad–not as in complaining (which I think needs to be legitimately heard), but more along the lines of, say, out in the open (no aliases or pen names) about potentially controversial topics (religion, politics, certain social issues, etc). If you have a simple hobby or interest that has NOTHING to do with your employer, and can’t POSSIBLY make them look bad, then they should get a grip. I bet there’s the irony that Marilyn talked about historical fiction with her co-workers, with no repercussions.
What’s hard is wanting to blog/tweet/FB about issues you care about relating to your industry, as sort of an online resume/career-building move (that everyone’s telling everyone to do these days), and having people not hire or fire you as a result of it, no matter how innocuous you think the comment is. It’s as almost as if, despite career gurus’ advice to the contary, you should have no personality or vision, during the job interview, continuing afterwards if you get the job. I guess I’m meant to be self-employed, because apparently only bosses are meant to have the opinions/vision/final say in the workplace.
January 21st, 2011 at 9:39 am
It’s a fine line employees walk when it comes to this type of expression. I do hope these things become more clarified as we move forward so workers and managers know what to do. There’s an interesting story today in the Wall Street Journal that talks about how employers can sometimes overstep their legal bounds when it comes to their workers’ social media participation. Here’s a link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703954004576089850685724570.html
January 22nd, 2011 at 12:34 pm
Just read it. Yes, will be interesting to see what will happen in the years to come. If stuff makes it all the way to the Supreme Court, however, I’m not having high hopes.
January 22nd, 2011 at 2:23 pm
“It’s great that your involved”
“…if they don’t like what your doing out there in cyber space.”
The word usage ought to be either:
‘you are’ or the contraction
‘you’re’
…never ‘your’ in those contexts. I know we all pronounce the words as ‘your’ but, when reading the word as misused it brings my reading to a complete stop, attempting to understand the meaning of the sentence. That surely is not what you as an author intend.
I constantly see this misuse whenever I read readers comments about blogs and news stories. Content providers should not be guilty of this as well.
Thank you for listening to my rant.
Patrick Dowd
January 22nd, 2011 at 2:31 pm
Thanks for pointing that out Patrick. It’s fixed.
January 24th, 2011 at 8:15 am
There is a great deal out there that is or could be construed as misuse of social networking. But regarding negative comments made by employees, it seems to me a wise plan to be very, very careful what you complain about on any social media in relation to your job - or why not just choose not to complain? Sometimes my facebook feed can just be a general moan by people who aren’t happy with their lives. If I was their employer, I wouldn’t be impressed either.
January 24th, 2011 at 12:54 pm
Eve, I think that this is one of those cases that will need to wait for a major case to be decided before any kind of consensus starts to take hold. My feeling is that it should be simple: organizations know employees will use their 3G phones for social media, so they might as well do it from within the organization’s network so the activity is monitored. Otherwise, it could become a theoretical breach of information security policies.
That being said: this shouldn’t be so difficult. Employees need to understand that if it makes the organization look bad–or worse, creates legal liability–the organization needs to step in hard and fast. Similarly, organizations need to understand that employees *can* be among the organization’s biggest brand ambassadors, so positioning them to do so is just plain smart.
January 25th, 2011 at 2:53 pm
My mom took forever to join Facebook, even though she wanted to because her boss had told the office that if they were on Facebook, they should be using it for business development and nothing else and he would track down employees who were on it to make sure they were doing just that. So eventually my mom joined, but she uses a fake first name to hide from her boss, so she can look at photos of my nephew and chat with our extended family like everyone else.