While some people; namely, hockey players with local ties, use Twitter to congratulate an ex-wife on end of divorce payments, others spew venom about their bosses.
I know. I should have warned you to sit down first. Let me know when the shock subsides.
K-thx.
I’m a little late to the game on this case (Gatto v. United Airlines). It’s about a personal injury case in which the defendant sought discovery of a the plaintiff’s Facebook page. Yadda, yadda, yadda, plaintiff deletes his Facebook page and the court sanctions the plaintiff.
But here’s the part I like:
While Facebook did respond to the subpoena served upon it, Facebook objected to providing certain information related to Plaintiff’s account due to concerns regarding the Federal Stored Communications Act. Facebook instead recommended that the account holder download the entire contents of the account as an alternative method for obtaining the information. Defendants allege that this issue was discussed with the Court during a telephone status conference on January 6, 2012, where Plaintiff’s counsel advised that he would be willing to download the account information and provide a copy to the parties. Defendants allegedly agreed to Plaintiff’s proposal, with the condition that Plaintiff would also provide a certification that the data was not modified or edited since the December 1, 2011 settlement conference.
Welcome citizens of the Utah.
I’d say welcome back, but, according my blog stats, so few of you have seen my blog a first time. How could that be? Some of my best posts involve the Beehive State:
For much of the week, I’ve blogged about Adria Richards, the employee who got fired for tweeting complaints about discrimination. On Monday, I offered my legal analysis (here).
On Tuesday, I followed that up with this simple poll that purported to remove the law from the equation: Was the decision of Ms. Richards’s employer, SendGrid, to fire her “fair” or “unfair”? “Fair” and “unfair” were the only two answers and they were randomized such that either one could have appeared as the top choice when taking the poll.
Now the results are in. 129 of you responded and 70 of you (54%) said that the firing was fair. 59 respondents indicated that the firing was unfair (46%).
Whew!
Got a little carried away with yesterday’s post about the employee who got fired for tweeting complaints about discrimination, didn’t I?
Then again, I’m not the one who came up with the hashtag #donglegate.
Is this Retaliation 2.0?
Two weeks ago, Adria Richards attended an industry conference at which she overheard sexual jokes from two attendees sitting behind her during a session. So, she complained…on Twitter:
Not cool.Jokes about forking repo’s in a sexual way and “big” dongles.Right behind me #pycon twitter.com/adriarichards/…
— Adria Richards (@adriarichards) March 17, 2013
And then she blogged about it here. The social-media complaints resulted in one of the joke tellers getting fired. And, last Wednesday, Ms. Richards tweeted that her employer supported her.
Hey @mundanematt, it’s clear from the last 24 hours you’re a bully.@sendgrid supports me.Stop trolling.
— Adria Richards (@adriarichards) March 20, 2013
That same day, SendGrid, Ms. Richards’s employer, fired her.
(Jon Brodkin at arstechnica.com has the full story here).
We can argue about the propriety of using social media to publicize a harassment complaint, especially when a private complaint could have sufficed. Still, the SendGrid response certainly seems harsh and unfair.
But did SendGrid go so far as to retaliate (as a matter of law) against Ms. Richards?
Find out, after the jump…
Your social media policy may be good when it comes to addressing legal risks. But getting that message across to your employees…
Not so much, according to a recent survey from Protiviti (here).
The Protiviti survey shows that more businesses are addressing employee use of social media — 57% of respondents have social media policies. And, generally, those social media policies do a good job of addressing legal risks. For example, 90% of surveyed companies with social media policies have provisions in those policies what address disclosure of company information.
On March 12, a federal court in PA resolved the first HUGE LinkedIn account dispute case involving an employee and former employer. I’ve written about out it a few times previously. (Here, here,and here).
The latest decision is involved. And rather than pontificate — too many syllables — I’ll defer to Venkat Balasubramani, who has the full scoop here.
My laziness knows no ends. Unless those ends involve a medium-rare burger, wrapped in bacon.
Philadelphia may be poised now to follow in the footsteps of other states and municipalities that have passed similar laws to regulate what appears to be a non-existent problem.
I’ll lay it out for you after the jump…
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Have you checked out DriveThruHR yet?
DriveThruHR is the baby of Bryan Wempen and William Tincup, a half-hour radio show on which these two HR leaders, along with a guest, discuss the latest trends, thoughts and sentiment within the industry.
Yesterday, I was on DriveThruHR, Human Resource’s #1 Daily Radio, talking social media and the workplace, Americans with Disabilities Act, hockey, and gettin’ freaky with the mashed potatoes. Yeah, that’s right. Hockey.
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