Should you be fired from your job for what you post on Facebook/Twitter?

 

Today’s uber-relevant question comes to us from Josh in Fort Wayne, Indiana.  With so much of the world all a-Twitter these days, is it fair for employers to monitor social networking sites and their employees’ online activities?

 

The American in me wants to throw up my fists and scream, “Hell no!”.  We live in a society founded upon certain unalienable rights, including the freedom of speech.  If I want the internet world to know the sordid details of my afternoon-commute encounter with the toothless, hairy homeless guy who sets up shop next to the gas station, that’s my business, right? Right?

 

Well, yes and no.  Yes, it is my right as an American to make my opinions known just as it’s my right to post photographs of various not-so-intimate details of my daily life.  What is not guaranteed in the constitution, however, is the right to be a completely naïve and self-absorbed idiot.  Most of us know that the internet is not exactly private.  We have a basic understanding that what we choose to put out there will be seen and viewed by complete strangers, regardless of the safeguards we’ve put in place to ‘protect’ our public information.  Only want Cousin Joe and his wife to see the photo of little Johnny in the bathtub? There’s a process for that.  Want to exist on social media networks but don’t want Sally, your ex-girlfriend, to know you’re sleeping with her sister? Check.  Does this mean that the information you’re trying to protect will never get out? Of course not, don’t be silly.  There will always be someone smart enough, and bored enough, to figure out how to see your stuff online.

 

So what about social media networks in the workplace? Should what you post online have an effect on your job?  If you’re all about posting compromising photos or rumors or partaking in any otherwise shady online business, perhaps.  But, honestly, what harm could it bring to my employer if I, say, post a mobile photo of myself out drinking with coworkers? A few simple questions generally pop into my mind when I’m contemplating a social media move:

 

• Am I at work right now?
• Am I using company-owned technology in my social media activities?
• Would I want my grandfather happening upon this information?
• What impact might this activity have on others?

 

In reminding myself of the answers to these questions, I’m generally ensuring that my bases are covered should anyone see what I am posting.  Not being a naïve idiot myself, I’m well aware of the following:

 

• If I’m on work time, I represent my company.  Anything I do publicly during work time will reflect on my employer and my productivity. Kind of a no-brainer here.  You’re not getting paid to play online, and you’re making the company look bad.
• A pretty standard rule-of-thumb, but if it’s not my computer, there’s no way I can control my privacy.
• If I don’t want my family to see it, it’s probably not something that’s going to reflect well on myself at work.
• Have a little empathy. When you offend people, belittle them, or insult them, no one wins. Well, sometimes there’s a winner. Sometimes there’s just jail time.

 

So while overall, we should rock on with our freedoms that we have in the US, we should never lose sight of the lessons we learned as children in terms of having a solid concept of what is right and wrong, and more importantly, how right and wrong is perceived by others.  Example:

 

• Jen’s boss hears from others in the department that Jen has been logging into Facebook quite a bit during the workday.
  • SCENARIO 1: It is clear to see by looking at Jen’s online profile that she is spending her work time playing games and taking ‘fun’ quizzes.
  • SCENARIO 2: Jen’s boss can tell by looking at her online profile that Jen has spent the morning using Facebook to network with other companies within her industry and learn some best-practices.

 

In both of these scenarios, Jen’s been online during the workday and it’s being noticed by her coworkers.  Is this simple act grounds for discipline or termination? Perhaps, but perhaps not.  In examining the two scenarios, it’s clear that Jen’s activities could be drastically different natures.  In the first scenario, Jen’s online activities display a flagrant disregard for company rules and her performance is sure to be affected in a negative way.  In the second scenario, however, Jen is aware that she represents her company during her workday and uses social media in a business-appropriate fashion that relates to her job.

 

So is it right for a company to take action based on an employee’s online activities? In certain cases, yes.  It is up to the web user – the employee – to employ a healthy dose of common sense when posting to the internet, to essentially cover their own backsides and ensure their own job security.  And who doesn’t want to do that?

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Today’s ”Just Ask Angie” question comes from Paul, in Quincy, MA:  How does a pro life protester justify calling themselves PRO life when they are willing to kill?

It’s done in the same fashion as any other war that’s been fought in the name of religion.  However, in other, non-Christian-based faiths, those who commit acts of violence in the name of their religion are generally regarded by the masses as being extremist or separatist, or even terrorists.  In the largely-Christian US (75.1% as reported by ARIS in 2008), however, we hesitate to put such labels on those rogues who take divine justice into their own hands.

We are a country founded on freedoms – freedoms of speech, religion – but have those freedoms been bastardized to the point that any one individual is able to twist those freedoms to serve their own agendas?  Have the liberties our forefathers fought for been taken such for granted that we feel entitled to be the judges of others’ moral makeup?

I’ve often heard pro-lifers justify the violent acts of some hardcore protesters by citing the old term lex talionis (“Eye for an Eye”).  In viewing the act of abortion as immoral and wrong, the overzealous protestor feels entitled to threaten or take the life of someone whom they see as willing to do the same to an unborn fetus. 

What is easily forgotten, however, are the many other religious sayings that negate the old ‘eye for an eye’ mentality of justice:

• Judge not that ye be not judged (Matthew 7:1)
• Judge not thy neighbor until thou art come into his place (Hebrew Proverb)
• And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily, I say unto you, They have their reward. Matthew 6:5
•  Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.  Luke 6:31 

The willingness to kill in the name of pro-life is justified by nothing more than hypocrisy and ego.  In ignoring the basic fundamentals of the Christian faith and refusing to focus on the morality of one’s own life, the violent pro-lifer takes on an almost narcissistic role of vigilante, seeing it as his or her duty to carry out “God’s wrath” on those seen as deserving of it.  Seldom does this person stop to examine his or her own lifestyle, often relying on, and ultimately blaming, God’s will, as justification and reasoning for his or her actions.  This person does not see his or herself as a murderer, no – but a special, if not ‘chosen’, messenger of God.

Revisiting the bastardization of American liberties, it is often the violent pro-life protester’s mentality that the law is wrong or flawed, or secondary to the laws of one’s faith.  The laws of man need not apply to those who are ‘carrying out God’s work’.  I struggle, still, to find the differences between such domestic religious zealots and the rogue Muslim terrorists and Islamic extremists that use violence and bloodshed to further impose their views on society.  But that could just be me.

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