Employers Struggle to Draw Line between Privacy Invasion and Maintaining Company Reputation

June 19, 2009

With the advent and consequent popularity of social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter, many employees are using the opportunity and audience provided to bash their employers or workplaces. This causes a great deal of concern for the employers because they want to maintain the reputation of the company. However, many are struggling to monitor and police the entries and “tweets” that their employees post.

Because of laws concerning the freedom of speech and expression, many employers are not allowed to fire their employees simply based upon a comment that was made on a social networking site. This can be considered a violation of First Amendment rights and privacy.

However, if an employee writes a negative comment on a site while he or she is at work, then many company policies maintain that they have the right to fire the employee. It is not possible for the employer to follow what the employee does while at home or at school.

Companies are being advised to be aware of these sites and the potential damage that they can do to a company’s reputation. They are being told to talk to their employees and make it known that if an employee has a complaint, that he or she can make it to the employer without fear of retribution.