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Lawyers and Social Media: Monitoring Off-Duty Conduct on the Internet: Facebook, Blogs and Social Networking Media
Send to us by our friend David Leonard:
From ALI ABA: Blogging, twittering, and use of other social networking media, such as Facebook, Flickr, MySpace, etc., are all becoming more popular each day, as is posting videos on YouTube, and otherwise posting information and images on the Internet. As such, employers are increasingly becoming interested in monitoring employees' off-duty Internet activity. But what are the risks and rationales involved of doing so? More...
Tags: employee monitoring, law, social media
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Brian Russo on -
I read something that was talking about how private/third party databases hold copies of criminal records even after they've been officially expunged and how companies that use these to do pre-employment screenings will therefore find them. They cast the topic in the light of "companies will be able to find stuff they couldn't before". I thought of it more along the lines of - "will we believe these databases?"
Kinda reminds me of this, in the sense that.. I wonder how quickly and how far our notions of privacy and confidentiality will evolve to deal with this sort of media. We're effectively entering a time where information about people's lives will live on forever. My childhood and yours lives on in the memories of others, our own, and perhaps scattered photos, journals, and personal records.
For kids today, information won't die as it used to, and it can be much more easily disseminated. None of that is enlightening; however I think it's interesting when you consider it in the context of our attitude towards it. I've often thought that this is why it seems kids today can't remember or plan things as well. Perhaps because they don't need to? They can just look it up or instantly ask someone?
Getting back on topic, much of what people post on these sites that is work-related are the sort of comments that if mentioned over a few beers with a couple of your pals wouldn't be a big deal. "My boss so and so is a jerk". Now that it lives forever.. will we censor ourselves more? Or will we merely accept the new reality. I suspect a combination of both.
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Permalink Reply by Daniel Leuck on -
That is a very interesting point. In today's world everything is recorded and nothing is ephemeral. This is bound to have a profound impact on our society. I'm glad you can't google all the idiotic conversations I had with my friends in high school :-)
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Permalink Reply by David Heerwald Leonard on
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This growing focus by the corporate HR legal community on social networking, as evidenced by this recent ALI-ABA ("American Bar Association") seminar, may result in companies modifying their current e-mail user policy. The modification may either be a total ban or a notice to all employees that there is "no expectation of privacy" in the use of social media applications on company laptops, PDAs or other IT equipment whether during work hours or not and the information will be considered company property and subject to monitoring and disciplinary action. This is the typical policy now applying to corporate e-mail.
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