As a special guest on WFMY’s The Good Morning Show, Elon Law professor Eric Fink cautioned U.S. workers that Twitter messages or content on other social media platforms can trigger punitive action by employers.
In the interview, Fink said that employers can discipline and even fire employees for content posted on Twitter or Facebook. “Private employers, unlike the government, are not prohibited from punishing you for your free speech,” Fink said.
An expert in labor and employment law, Fink explained the broad scope of employer rights.
Because most employment is considered to be “at-will”, Fink said, “if you work for a private sector employer, your employer has the right to fire you really for any reason at all. They can fire you for something you said at a dinner table conversation too. The difference with Twitter is your boss is more likely to find about it and your boss is more likely to worry that other people are going to see it.”
Public employees, or employees covered by union or individual contracts, generally have greater protection, and may be shielded from being fired for private Twitter comments absent some demonstrable adverse impact on the employer’s business interests.
Fink also described recent developments as they relate to corporate policies about employee use of social media platforms.
“A lot of lawyers who advise employers have been starting to advise companies to have policies for Twitter, Facebook, some of these other social media services, to protect the employer’s interest,” Fink said. “Some of that is policies about the kinds of content that they want employees not to use. Some of it is about protecting their company name, protecting their trademarks for example. Some of it might just be, ‘we expect our employees not to talk about wild nights of drinking or other things that would reflect poorly on us.’”
However, Fink noted that, at least for at-will employees, such policies are not necessarily binding against the employer, so those employees might still face discharge or discipline even for postings that do not violate the employer’s policy.
Fink noted that people concerned about access to their personal correspondence can alter privacy settings available for Twitter and Facebook, but he cautioned that such settings are not a guarantee of privacy.
“These privacy settings are only relative,” Fink said. “Somebody is reading you and anybody could find out what you write.”
Click on the E-Cast link to the right of this article to watch a segment from Fink’s two part interview with WFMY News 2.
Click here to read more about Elon Law professor Eric Fink.