With the advance in technology, the use of social media as major communication tools has increased, and this has led to changes in the workplace, in good ways and bad. In the last few decades, many employees have been disciplined or fired for their postings on social media. Employers can legally monitor their employees' social media usage, but with certain limitations. Generally, employers have the power to fire employees for any lawful reason –including information obtained from employee's Internet usage, email, or social media accounts.
It is appropriate and ethical for employers to fire employees who share information, post contents on social media, or have personal websites or blog that the employer deems inappropriate, offensive, or reflects poorly on the company (Workplace Fairness, 2019). It is also appropriate to discipline or fire employees who visit sexually explicit contents at work. Depending on the company’s monitoring policy, all private employees can be fired for their social media postings in the workplace and outside of it. However, government employees have free speech protections with certain limitations.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
Courts have ruled that employer's interests in monitoring the content of work emails or company social media accounts outweigh the privacy interest of employees (Workplace Fairness, 2019). Since company emails or social media accounts is considered the property of the company, employers have the right to monitor them without notice to the employer. This is because there is no reasonable expectation of privacy on company email or social media accounts. However, there are certain limitations to private emails or private social media accounts. For example, in Michigan and Illinois, employers may be liable for violating employee’s privacy without their consent or for improperly gathering employee information (Workplace Fairness, 2019). Employees should be aware of the risks of what they say, share, or post online as it may increase the risk of being disciplined or fired by their employees.
References
Workplace Fairness. (2019). Social networking & computer privacy. [Online]. Retrieved from: https://www.workplacefairness.org/social-network-computer-privacy-workplace . Accessed 1 st September 2019.
