I tagged myself on Irish seals

[Harleyquiiinn]

This is a thread about Facebook. And law.

So we had these cases lately about Facebook. It's labour law cases of employees getting fired because of Facebook. These started a few years ago but there is something new in these ones.

See, before, you could get fired for posting something on facebook because of your confidentiality settings like "ah ah ah, I told my boss I was sick to go to Eurodisney !" opened to everyone.

This is not a problem, it's even logical.

But in these new cases, the profiles were private. Some employees criticized their employer on their pages, and usually, what happens is that one of their "friends" also working their go tell the said employers.

The employer is pissed. Of course. And fires his employees who dared to criticize him behind his back.

Now this is interesting about the status of facebook. The rule is "you can't criticize your employer in public because it could cause him trouble. And you have an obligation of loyalty toward him, so that's not cool". But is Facebook public when you restrained the access to your page ?

In the physical world, you can't fire an employee because you heard he said something about you in private and behind your back. Just because Facebook is accessible through a computer, does it mean it's not private anymore ?

We all know we have to be careful about what we post and who we add as friends, but legally, can we say that posting something on a private profile is the same as posting something on a blog that everybody can visit ?

What do you think ? Should these employees have been fired ?


PS: I really tagged myself on an Irish seal.

[PAC90]

i think so they should be fired cause of the "you can't criticize your employer in public because it could cause him trouble. And you have an obligation of loyalty toward him, so that's not cool" rule.

i mean Facebook isn't really what you could call private if you post something on your wall its always visible to all of your friends and it can still be a large group. if you want to criticize your boss or just vent with someone do it in a text message or better yet do it personally while talking to a friend of yours

[yarock]

On first impression the employers seem cruel but..

In order to deliberate this better I try to create an equivalence. Here it comes: You wrote your thoughts of your employer to a journal that published by an association. This journal can only bought by this association's members. Lo and behold; one of your collagues is also a member, reads the article and sees him/herself obliged to share it with the boss (blame this cocksuckah.) I don't know, if I were an employer I would send away the ones that speaks / writes offensive in such platforms about me unless there's a special occasion. I became peeved of Facebook so long ago, in my country people call it "face" - that drives me even more crazy. They don't know English but they know "face". I guess you can always BLAME ZUCKERBERGGG!!!!!11!

[T-6005]

Absolutely not.

I feel like the distinction in this instance really lies in the privacy settings. In much the same way that you can't fire someone for something they said "behind closed doors" which was reported to you, neither can you fire someone for something they posted "behind closed [privacy settings]" online.

Facebook is a public forum inasmuch as you want it to be. When you restrict public access, that is a direct attempt to preserve 'privacy' (as it exists on the internet, anyway) and removes an event from the public sphere of scrutiny.

Simply put - in much the same way that your boss won't hear about the shitty things you said concerning them at the party unless one of the guests reports it, your boss won't hear about the shitty things you've said on facebook unless someone who has been allowed into what should have been a private situation does the same.

It still makes you a shitty person, but you can't be fired for it.

[WebDudette]

I definitely agree with Thi. If you've made an attempt to make your facebook private, then it should be considered a private matter. Where do you draw the line? I had a locked post on my myspace years ago, only I could read it. But if for whatever reason, someone else got into it or if I only allowed close friends to read it, shouldn't that be considered private? I don't see how that would be any different from having a private profile.

All that said, people shouldn't be idiots.

[RageAndLov]

Depends on how he criticised his boss. Was it a personal thing like the employee said his boss's hair looks fugly, or was it something else like the employee said that he didn't care for a certain deal his boss made with another company?