Can't mention employer on Facebook (legal issues?)

Factual Questions
21

Devil’s advocate: The First Amendment only says that the government can’t limit your right to “free speech”, a right which the courts have interpreted broadly. Nothing in there regarding what a company can do or not do.

And, as Charles Evan Hughes so aptly put it, the First Amendment doesn’t give you the right to shout “Fire” in a crowded theater.

Can your company, in legal terms, limit your rights to free speech? Tough to answer. I live in California, where employment is “at will”, meaning the company can fire me for any reason. We have both state and federal statutes prohibiting discrimination, and I would have to prove that the company was discriminating against me when it fired me.

Simply “speaking my mind” is not covered under any discrimination laws I know of. “Whistle-blowing” is, but I don’t think the OP is talking about that.

It’s both unfair and stupid for your company to place these limits on your outside speech or force you to hype the company (or both?). Unfair, in that the company should focus on individual behavior. Stupid, in that it just makes the company look backward and oppressive, both to its employees and to the outside world.

Still, it’s “legal” in the sense that any action they take against you would be legal (subject to the limitations I’ve already mentioned), including firing you.

If you, or anyone, really wants to be anonymous, you can find better ways of doing it than e-mail or Facebook! Alas, most of them involve printing things on paper, which doesn’t get you nearly as much distribution.

If you think about it, the Internetz is not at all anonymous. The best way to make your ideas widely known is to post them on a frequently-visited website. But unlike newspapers, which in olden times printed opinions and then fought to keep the author secret, websites lean in the opposite direction: “Oh we’ll get sued, so we keep track of who you are and had over the information if someone shows up on the doorstep with a warrant.”

And you can’t hide. Your company is probably searching for you even now, trying to catch you doing wrong. As I said, stupid but perfectly legal. You can do two things: go work for a good company, or get everyone at your company to violate the regulations.:smiley:

22

Excellent point. Definitely don’t be a martyr. And remember, no company is perfect. Trashing your company is like trashing your spouse/SO: best not to do it too publicly until you have another one lined up! I mean, even if you survive it, it won’t be pleasant.

23

First of all, I hope the OP didn’t post from his work computer. They be watching.

Unless the two memos reflect a change of heart as previously mentioned, I guess they wanted everyone to buddy them to look cool and then noticed that being buddied by all your staff and nobody else makes them look more Orwellian than cool. Now they want you to cover your employee status so it looks like the company is buddied by fans and not by employees.

24

I would have thought the whole idea of the company asking you not to post who you work for, is to protect your free speech rights.

I recently started a thread “When private beliefs intrude on work life”. If “the public” don’t know who you work for - post what you like. If you are identified with the company, only post what places the company in a positive light - not so intrusive.

It seems that “not posting who you work for” is a very much lesser evil than actually trying to control your blog…and is IMHO totally reasonable

25

I suspect you are correct. Now I’m wondering who did have nasty stuff on their Facebook page. Hmmm…

As for me, I’ve never put anything about the company on my page. (Never will – and not because of some directive from legal. Quite frankly, I don’t want reminders of work on my off time.) It’s not actually an issue. But it struck a hypothetical nerve.

I have to think about whether it’s worth asking for clarification from legal. What I really would like to do is write out some sort of statement to have on hand, declining the request to “friend” the company on Facebook. That way, if the idea comes up in a meeting, I’m prepared with something to say – because I don’t think so well on my feet! I think I am justified in saying that I need to maintain a separation between my work and private life. But I’m not sure.

26

How is the company’s behavior assholish? How is any employee injured by not being able to say “I work for Company X”?

27

The question i would return to you is: How is the company hurt by the employee being able to say that?

If the employee specifically says or does something that brings the company name into disrepute, that would be a different question. But as it is, i stand by my opinion that the company is acting like overbearing assholes.

28

You’re entitled to your opinion, of couse. To me it seems reasonable. If they were being overbearing assholes, they’d demand the right to edit things like blog posts and so forth, rather than simply asking not to be mentioned.

29

The 1st amendment argument won’t work for anyone. Yes, you have the right to free speech, but that speech can be limited if it infringes on the rights of others.

The company has a right to maintain its reputation as a good business. Although the majority of facebook/myspace users will not do anything detrimental to the company’s reputation, that’s not the point. THe fact remains that there are SOME people who will or might. That risk is enough to justify the company’s action.

And having your place of employment on your facebook page can be detrimental to your company’s reputation if you have pictures of yourself playing topless beer pong or something overtly sexual or discriminatory posted.

No company wants a potential client to associate it with the bad behavior of one employee.

30

I wish I could remember who said it, but I always liked this one: “You have the right to say whatever you want. I, however, am under no obligation to provide you with a forum in which to say it.”

31

Nitpick: That was Oliver Wendell Holmes.

32

… or these are completely unrelated memos put out by different parts of the company that were completely unaware of the other memo. I’m not saying Machiavellian scheming never happens, but in any company with more than two managers, I’d prefer to bet on “The left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing”

But the second memo does give rivulus a plausible reason to ignore the first one. (And that’s my advice. Pointing out they’re inconsistent might win brownie points but it will more likely win ‘annoying smartass’ points. And the first memo doesn’t really sound like it’s going to be followed up with each individual employee. So ignore it. If anyone ever does ask, then you can mention the second one as a good excuse).

33

Thought i’d bump this thread to post a link:

Applicants for city jobs in Bozeman, Montana:

So, if you want to apply for a job, you not only have to make sure that there’s nothing potentially embarrassing in your publicly-viewable profile, but you also have to give the city your login and password details and let them snoop around in the private stuff that no-one on the internet can actually see.

As this PC Pro story points out, not only does this raise serious privacy concerns, but sharing your login and password details actually violates the Terms of Service of many of these social networking sites.

34

The City of Bozeman has already suspended that practice:

35

Good to hear. It was fucking retarded. Unfortunately, it usually takes a whole bunch of negative publicity for these sorts of officious assholes to do the right thing.

36

How is he injured? He is being constrained from speaking the truth. Small beans to you, perhaps, but not to me.

37

He is not being constrained at all. He’s going to have to think of the consequences, though. We forget that the “right” to speak freely exists only vis-a-vis the government, not private individuals.

38

This is poorly worded. The right to speak freely exists everywhere, which is one of the definitions of a human right. You have the right to speak freely in a bar—but if you’re harassing other customers (or even if you’re not), the bartender has the right to toss you out. That is, I think, what you’re trying to get at.

39

I don’t think anyone forgets that, especially given the number of times it’s pointed out on this message board by people who think they’re saying something new and interesting.

It’s simply that many people believe, in a nation whose people claim to support freedom of expression, that it would be a good thing if the principle of free speech were actually more widely respected in areas beyond government purview. That is, if you actually believe in freedom of expression as a principle worth defending, then you should be willing to give it more latitude than the minimum required by law.

As i said above, if someone says something on Facebook that specifically brings the company into disrepute, then deal with that. But to make a blanket prohibition on all mentions of where you work seems pointless and contrary to the spirit (not the legality) of free expression.

40

Uh, yeah, he is. To constrain.

No, we don’t. Or at least I didn’t. I can’t speak for you.

I never said his rights were violated, so please try not to put words in my mouth.