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The Repercussions of Blogging
hende_jman writes "How much should you be allowed to say in a public blog? There's an article on CNN that looks at different situations in which people have been fired for blogging about their company. The main issue brought seems not to be one of a lack of trust (blogs, after all, are most often public), but rather a lack of policy outlining repercussions for negative blogging about one's company."
It's about the companies rights. They can fire you for whatever reason they like.
It's a two way street, you can leave whenever you want, and the company can leave you.
Stop this bellyaching about your freedom. You don't have the "right" to keep your job.
duh?
If you've signed a NDA or any other legally binding agreement that compells you to STFU about a particular subject, then you're not allowed to talk about that subject, be it to your family around the dinner table or to the world via a blog. Seems pretty simple...
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
lack of common sense by the blogger.
The possibility of having one's blog data mined by identity theives, or your family's enemies is something to keep in mind when writing too. If you wouldn't want your Grandmother discussing what you're talking about, it's probably a better idea to vent verbally to a friend [as long as you don't know Linda Tripp], than to put your rant into writing for potentially hostile people to read.
Saskboy's blog is good. 9 out of 10 dentists agree.
1. Never fuck anyone from the office.
2. Never blog about your work either.
This isn't kindergarten... nobody should need a 'policy' to tell them that if they badmouth their employer in public (or otherwise reflect badly on them), they're not going to be welcome at work for much longer.
It's called 'biting the hand that feeds you', and it's never a particularly smart idea.
The problem of course is that blogs are accessible world wide and can potentially reach a much larger audience than if you were simply talking to friends about how crappy your company is. To some extent, the fired employees deserve some of the blame as they would have to realize the potential implications of posting the information they did, but this IS the problem with technologic advancement. There are always teething problems associated with new technologies being used within existing methodologies and communication paradigms. The trick is, always be careful of what you say and be willing to take the heat for it......even if it is on a personal blog that might be accessed by hundreds, or thousands of individuals. I am always amazed at the traffic my blog receives for a non-commercial ( I would rather keep it commercial free), personal site. Articles like my What is the iPod are some days getting a hundred hits or more from all over the world, so one should expect that some attention may come your way even with what you may consider minor posts.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
You are allowed to say whatever you want, and if your employer doesn't like it, he's allowed to fire you.
Freedom of speech, as the saying goes, does not mean freedom from consequences.
Um. Before you continue this discussion, I propose that you spend a little time reading what Mr. Jefferson actually wrote. Then you might realize that if he were here today, he'd say that the constitutionally guaranteed freedom of speech is not a get-out-of-jail-free card. The fact that the government does not prohibit you, or anyone else, from saying whatever you want doesn't mean that your words won't have consequences, consequences up to and including the loss of your job.
Jefferson was a lot bigger on personal responsibility than you seem willing to give him credit for.
Most companies do have them.
They're called NDA's.
I don't know. If I circulated flyers around my workplace that said it sucked, do you think I would be able to keep my job?
If I started handing newsletters out on the street corner that had articles about the inside dirt about my company, could I be fired? Of course I could and with good justification. Corporations are under no obligation to uphold the First Amendment. (And that's one big reason I'm against privatization of government services.)
Blogs are simply a more efficient means of communicating a message, nothing more. Why is this even controversial?
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
except now your dissention is documented.
Mildly offtopic, but it does reflect on the blogsphere a bit. (Did I just use that word?)
I am a gentle employee bunny.
1) I am a gentle bunny. I will listen carefully before I speak. In so
doing I might get some faint clues from my manager as to who is going to
get screwed next, and so take steps to make sure I am not in the penumbra of
blame when it happens.
2) I am a gentle bunny. I will think before I speak. I will make very
sure I don't violate my employer's non-disclosures or talk about the stock
during blackout periods. Nor will I reveal what I know about management's
little hobbies. I will remember that my employer is *not* a gentle bunny, but
is part wolf, part rat, and part Emperor Palpitine; and his lawyers are
even worse.
3) I am a gentle bunny. I will remember that when I speak I can hurt
others. Will what I say cause others pain? Will they take it out on me in
my next review?
4) I am a gentle bunny. Can I change the way I say something to avoid
hurting another yet still say it? I will strive to remember that in these
situations, precise factual accuracy must give way to the survival instinct;
it's a lot more important not to tick them off.
5) I am a gentle bunny. The things I love are not loved by all. I will not
force the things I love onto others. Not even if it is honesty, decency,
and fiducial responsibility, and the people lacking these things are thereby
risking jail time.
6) I am a gentle bunny. If I wish to show others the things that I love I
will check with those present in case they do not wish to be involved.
This is especially true when I am comtemplating whistleblowing.
7) I am a gentle bunny. I will accept any gift freely given, yet I will
never ask for a free gift. The last time I did, I was fired, and I learned
from that.
8) I am a gentle bunny. I will remember that though I may not love
something, that does not mean another may not love it. Everyone has their
own take on these things, and just because I don't like fraud, doesn't
mean the CEO isn't into it bigtime.
9) I am a gentle bunny. I will listen and think on everything a person
says, not just the parts I wish to fight with or the parts with which I
already agree. If I find that everything presented is utter fantasy and
absurdity, I will still carefully consider that this is, after all, my
employer, and that in fantasy one may sometimes find humor, especially in
schedules.
10) I am a gentle bunny. What I believe in is important to me. I will
remember that what others believe in is important to them. And if they
believe that lying to the employees is important, then I will remember
that "gentle" is not the same as "gullible".
11) I am a gentle bunny. Another person may hold dear to their heart a
view that contradicts mine. This does not mean that their view or mine is
wrong for each may be the right choice for each of us. After all, there
are no ethics in my workplace, so how can there be right and wrong
choices?
12) I am a gentle bunny. I will remember that words hurt worse and longer
than blows. I will remember that this is occasionally useful, and is
frequently the only response which is both legal and rational.
13) I am a gentle bunny. If someone speaks to hurt me, have I given them
cause? Is there something I have said or done that has caused them pain?
Probably not; they probably weren't doing it intentionally, and simply
wounded me in blithe, unconcerned self-interest. They are, after all,
management.
14) I am a gentle bunny. If I find myself wanting to hurt someone to make
my point, I will look at what I am saying to see what is lacking in my
view that I must harm another that they might agree? And if what is
lacking is a modicum of intelligence in the other party, I will nonetheless
remember that punching out the mentally enfeebled is neither gentle nor
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
PS: About your .sig: "Writing Games is Fun!" (presumably referring to authoring computer software with a focus on entertainment); one could also say "Writing Games are Fun", referring to Slashdot...
And you see nothing wrong with that? And where do we draw limits? Should you get fired because you support a different political party?
If we let our rights get eroded away this is what is going to happen.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
Nearly all the founding fathers made statements like Patrick Henery's "it is the desired goal that all citizens on a gun and know how to use it." Washington remarked about the delights of sitting on his porch at Mt Vernon smoking "cannibus cigarettes." Even the ones people like to quote against religion were really just against state-forced religion, and actually thought that society couldn't survive if people weren't to act within the traditional constraints of morality.
However, lefties like to harp on this "freedom of speech" thing as if it were some sort of cart blanche to say whatever the fuck they want to, but it doesn't apply to those "ignorant redneck racists." Then the righties go on about the "freedom to keep and bear arms," ignoring the fact that the purpose was that we are all supposed to be armed because we are not supposed to have a standing army. World War II changed the way we do business in the world. However, I absolutly believe a citizen's militia is the best way to maintain order. It certainly gives disciplin and everyone one knows everyone else is packing at home, so there is less insentive to burgalarize.
Then, lefties pick on the "freedom of religion" and try and say we are supposed to be a secular society with freedom FROM religion. The writings of the founding fathers don't say that AT ALL. But the fundimentalist christian right gets it wrong too, because they don't say people should be forced into a religion. Just that we have certain moral values which need to be upheld.
The moral of the story is, the founding fathers were about personal responsibility. There is enough rope to hang yourself from either end, you just have to know how not to. That's why the vote was restricted and we are not a direct democracy. Not everyone is capeable of the same things as eveyone else, and that includes that task of picking leaders. Here both sides will say "yes, just look at (Clinton, Bush) as evidence of that!"
I've read the Constitution, Declaration, amendments, et cetera, hundreds of times. I've read the fouding father's other works (several of them, anyway). Honestly, I believe other people should do the same. Really, I think we need to have citizenship classes like we used to, to teach people WHY it is we do the things we do as a society and why they are important. Then people can be trusted to vote and shit -- once they know why, not because poltician x said y and it sounds dandy to them.
I'm 20. I could have voted in the last 2 elections (president and a congressional midterm election). However, I have not put in my military service and don't believe i have earned citizenship. Naturalized citizens know more than most native-born types.
Also, I am currently a card-carrying mail-recieving member of the USA Socialist Party and the Constitution Party. I'm fairly active with College Republicans and hang out with amnesty international hippies. I don't really have politics except that I love America, I am proud of it, and that's that. Quite frankly, party-fighting is about as stupid as sectarian violence. If people looked at the intentions, as written, of the founding fathers, they would see that neither party is actually good for this country. And neither the liberals or conservatives have a handle on reality.
If a company doesn't like you I would understand they could fire you. Part of your job is to make the company money, and you can't do that by causing harm to the companies image. What I am really interested is in relation to blogging and school. If someone goes out and blogs a bunch of information about how a school sucks (which I think could happen quite a lot) is the students education and freedom of speach be protected. I feel this is much more interesting considering the fact the student is not employeed by the school, but the school is employeed by the student.
mnewberg.com
The CNN article can be distilled down to a couple of chilling sentences: "Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst at the civil liberties group Electronic Frontier Foundation, said employees often 'don't realize the First Amendment doesn't protect their job.' The First Amendment only restricts government control of speech. So private employers are free to fire at will in most states, as long as it's not discriminatory or in retaliation for whistle-blowing or union organizing, labor experts say."
The problem with blogging is that the words are documented. An employee can badmouth about his company or chat up the company's trade secrets in private settings and probably get away with it, but if he types those gripes or company secrets into his computer and hits the "publish" key, then he'd better realize that those words are permanently stored in a server, and the possibility that they might come back to haunt him is there.
Sun and Fun
Government construction? I'm gonna say "no".
Although the idea of a corporation is legislative, the government does not supply structure or support to any-given-corporation enough to make it a government institution covered under "Congress shall make no law".
By that logic, a "taxpayer" is a government institution, and telling someone to STFU would be government-endorsed oppression.
Information wants to be free.
Entertainment wants to be paid.
You just want to be cheap.
Is he doing it on company time? No? Well then, I'd say you don't have any right to fire him, what you do off the clock is and should be none of your employer's business. (This does not of course cover such things as breach of a nondisclosure agreement, but your example didn't involve a breach of contract.) Now, of course, if he's doing it on company time, you've got every right to fire 'em. But "freedom of speech" isn't real if you can't say what you wish without fear of repercussions-and losing your job, for a lot of people, can be as catastrophic a repercussion as jail time.
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
The one case where I can see putting a blog on a resume, is if it's professionally related and the traffic is a testimonial to others' opinions of your expertise. I know people with database-focused blogs that's be crazy not to list their blogs as credentials.
But then, they don't use their blog to wail and gnash their teeth about their personal lives, either.
Once again, the distinction:
Are you doing it AT WORK (on company property) and/or DURING WORK (on company time)?
If YES, it is your company's business, and justification to fire you. If NO, it is not. This is not similar to your analogy, since it (presumably) wasn't done during work or on company property-a more appropriate analogy would be "If I tell my friends how bad my day at work sucked at the bar after work, and it gets around to my boss, should he have the right to fire me?"
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
you cannot say "i have a bomb" on an airplane and not expect to be taken into immediate custody, or otherwise... you cannot sit in a theatre and yell "fire!" and not expect to be arrested for public disturbance...
free speech does not protect all speech... you cannot work for a company and go on TV and publicly say "our product sucks, buy from this other company" and not be fired. however, if you say "our product has a strong chance of injuring you", that's completely different.
please me, have no regrets.
> Considering you are posting under a pseudonym, your non-support for free speech is interesting.
why is it interesting?
and besides, there was no indication that he was against free speech, just against people that think that freedom of speech is also freedom from responsibility.
You are free to say what you want, but you have to accept the responsibility for your actions.
Most (decent) people don't use psudonyms or screen names in forums to allow them to escape responsibility, they do it to raise the barrier to random arseholes looking them up and harrasing them.
The fact that he posted using a logged in account means that he is willing to take responsibility for his words, otherwise he would have posted anonymously.
Advanced users are users too!
CNN mentions the guy who got fired from google for blogging.
What they don't mention is that the guy who got fired from google for blogging seems to have been violating SEC regulations by publicly posting certain information relating to Google's financials...
Common sense really needs to become an issue at some point.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
"If I tell my friends how bad my day at work sucked at the bar after work, and it gets around to my boss, should he have the right to fire me?"
But the answer to this question -- at least in the U.S., and in 49 of the 50 states -- is yes, your boss does have the right to fire you. Unless you are a member of a union, have a bonafide employment contract, or live and work in Montana, your boss can fire you for any reason at any time -- that's "at will" emplyment for you.
Now, whether your boss "should" have the right to fire you, that's another question altogether. But under current law, your boss CAN fire you for any reason at all, including off-duty badmouthing of the company.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
We just don't like the vulnerability we feel when other people have it too.
I find it interesting how little people see of the big picture -- the world centering around themselves so often yields such a limited perspective. I've brought the comparisson of western (by which I actually mean U.S.A.) society to eastern (by which mean Japan) society to illustrate an alternative way of thinking and considering things. Because the two societies are so different, it grants an opportunity to see how other people do things... a chance to see how things might be if they were different here.
The issue about "blogging" is really no different than if it were discovered that you were talking to a reporter about your company or, for that matter, if your boss overheard you at a dinner conversation. If you're unhappy with things at work, it is an embarassment for the people you work for to have you go around telling people how you feel. While I'm sure they wish they had a better recourse such as violent retaliation against your family or the ability to erase the memories of those to whom you have spread your filth about the company, firing is just about the only weapon they can wield.
In Japan, I think it is pretty well accepted that people will talk. They talk a lot. And what's more, people often worry about it so much that they do everything in their power to avoid anyone saying anything negative about themselves. This is a key motivator for many of the "positives" we see in Japanese society... if you've ever been there, you'd recall that they are patient, kind and generous to a fault. (At least, that was my experience.)
It is also often said that asian women usually don't become obese like western women very often do. Many people attribute this to their dietary habits, which I will agree helps, but if you don't think they love them burgers and fries, that pizza and spaghetti, you name it, then you'd be very wrong. So why? Because they don't want people talking about how fat they are!!!!! So they simply do what it takes to avoid it.
Again, it's the shame and embarassment issues that are motivators more than just about anything else. Here, it's simply bad manners to notice if someone is a fat pig and has unusually large breasts for a man. And if you SAY anything about it, it's on you! So the stigma is on the speaker rather than on the object of the speech.
This is not usually the case in blogging, however -- the stigma goes to the object. So what are we to do as a society? Should we, the people, embrace our freedom of speech by making allowances for the fact that it is simply unavoidable? Should we, the businesses of the U.S.A., defend our public image with litigation and termination or through kindness and generosity?
One thing is certain -- we, the people, are pretty damned short-sighted much of the time and care only about pleasing ourselves... this is pretty true about we, the businesses of america too... a damned shame isn't it?
I think civics and social studies should be very emphasized in our schools now more than ever. (And they shouldn't graduate unless they can pass a U.S. Citizenship exam.) The kids will know, most of the time, if they are being lied to anyway -- so even being taught lies could be of value.
By that logic, a "taxpayer" is a government institution, and telling someone to STFU would be government-endorsed oppression.
What if someone on welfare, Social Security, SSI or some other assistance program tells you to STFU?
The government is providing them with financial support while they try to impede your right to free speech.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
What you should and should not say is not changed by blogging. There is no real difference to making a public statement by any means, including blogging, newspapers, TV etc.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Damn right you can. There's no law that can make me hire, say, a member of the National Socialist White People's Party, or to continue to employ someone if I found out that he was a member of this party.
By the same token, there's no reason why someone should have to employ me if he finds my politics odious.
You can even discriminate on the basis of religion if you're clever about it. Several years ago I was applying for a position as assistant professor of physics at Baylor University and was asked to supply the name of my church, how often I attended services, how long I had been a member of that church, and to have the minister write a letter of reference.
It's good sense not to dis your employer in public.
You make the mistake of thinking you can educate the fundamental stupidity out of people. You can't.
Yes it should be allowed. An employment contract is between two people, and can be terminated if either party decides to not continue. If I saw my boss go into a strip club, I have the right to quit if I decide that it is an amoral place to work. The converse is also true.
Seriously, do people think that because there's a new and easy way of updating their websites (which is all that blogs are...simplified website management) that somehow they magically get a +5 Shield of I Can Say Whatever The Fuck I Want Without Repurcussions? Blogga, please.
Best. Comment. Ever. Enjoy!
You defined some extreme end points but there is a lot left in the middle.
Um. Actually, there's not. You're not going to be imprisoned for what you say. That's it. That's the one data point. And even that has exceptions. If you disclose national secrets, for example, you can be imprisoned. But the exceptions are few and specific.
The only thing that the First Amendment guarantees is that Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech. In other words, you will not be imprisoned for what you say. Neither will you be deprived of life, liberty or property for what you say. Congress lacks that power.
Everything else is fair game. Your boss wants to fire you? He can fire you. Your wife wants to divorce you? She can divorce you. Your kids want to stop eating their vegetables? They can stop eating their vegetables. Your friends want to stop returning your calls? They can stop returning your calls. Your dog wants to run away? Bye bye, Rover.
Freedom is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means, hey, you're free. On the other, it means that there's no safety net. You have to accept responsibility for your own decisions.
is saying negative things about your company legitimate grounds for being fired?
... except some very specific and narrow exceptions. You can't fire somebody for being one gender or the other, for belonging to a particular racial or political group or for adhering to a particular religion. You can't fire somebody for belonging to a union or for choosing not to join a union. That's about it.
Yes. Here's how we know.
Take a question of the form, "Is X legitimate grounds for being fired?" For any value of X, the answer is yes
For all other values of X, the answer is yes. Because employers are free, too, you know.
doesn't mean you should. If you're writing a blog, you should know that you are writing for the world. If you go to work and cuss out your boss, you have every right to do so, but you still may get fired for it. Blogs are no different -- it's not as if you are complaining in your own home to your friends. Your boss could be reading your blog, and if you're dumb enough to cuss him out in that type of public forum, you had better be ready to face the consequences.
http://www.walkingtaco.com
Why can't people just see the obvious - many freedoms are mutually incompatible. Redefining words to avoid the dilemma doesn't change anything.
So the only question is whose freedoms trump whose.
I'd add to that, that far too many people fail to understand the difference between censorship and criticism.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
in many countries, the reasonable principle is applied that there is an implied contract in any employment:
A) You do the job, as per your job-description
B) I pay you.
What you do on you own time is none of my business.
If you want to practice line-dancing in your own time---no matter how offensive and repulsive I may find this activity---as long as you do your job, the implied contract holds and I have no right to fire you for it.
If I fire you because of your unnatural findness for line-dancing, the gubmint gets to pay you enemployment. Since I fired you for no good reason, they are apt to come and (effectively) ask me for the money---plus collection expenses, allowances, etc.
I can see being fired for a lewd picture taken in the workplace. I can see being fired for revealing a hot new product on the web. I can see being fired if you revealed other corporate secrets on your blog but I cannot see why the Queen of the Sky was fired. First off, the pictures on the blog don't even reveal to me that she worked for Delta. So what that she showed a bit of cleavage. I have seen more cleavage when the attendent was serving my drink! Maybe we do need to revisit the first amendment. It should be allowed for you to state your opinion of your boss on your web page....just don't reveal his name! ;)
Gorkman
If people looked at the intentions, as written, of the founding fathers, they would see that neither party is actually good for this country.
No offense, but that sounds like pretty typical college-student blah-blah. I say that as somebody who, when I was 20, spouted exactly the same kind of nonsense.
Clue #1: You are not the first person to read our nation's heritage documents. We've all read them. We all know that the founding fathers envisioned a much different country from the one we live in. But we also know that the founding fathers recognized, above all else, the limits of their vision. The Constitution isn't inscribed in stone. It's a living, changing document. The process for amending it is strict, but straightforward. It was intended from the start to be a document that could adapt to changing times and changing situations, not one that would be so rigid that it might someday have to be thrown out.
The Constitution, in other words, was meant to last forever. And so far, it's done very well.
Clue #2: We no longer live in an agrarian nation of a few hundred thousand people scattered from Georgia to New York. Our situation is neither better nor worse, objectively, though different people have different opinions. But our situation has changed, drastically. Merely looking at documents written in the 18th century and concluding that things are different today is not insight, and it's not wisdom.
Clue #3: What you euphemistically refer to as "citizenship classes" went by some different names in older days. We called it "slavery" and we called it "male suffrage." Blacks weren't allowed to vote because they were considered property. Women weren't allowed to vote for basically the same reason. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find anybody who would say with a straight face that it's a great idea to go back to the days before universal suffrage.
Bottom line: You sound like a nice kid, but I think you've read Starship Troopers too many times. Recognize the limits of your understanding. Remember that the people around you, both your peers and those who were born before you, are not idiots, and that we do things for good reasons. And above all, try to be a little more humble. You don't know half of what you think you know, and you don't know a tenth of what you'll think you know at 30. You're just getting started. you've got a long way to go.
Regardless that the risk of losing a job is real, the CNN and Washington Post stories fail to mention the benefits to society of news blogs like mine that highlight the relevance of buried stories, and even break stories from time to time.
The press is supposed to be acting as the unofficial fourth branch of the U.S. government, to keep the other three in check. This is eloquently summarized in a 2002 6th Circuit Court decision:
If the mainstream media were doing its job to serve society, it would picking up the stories from blogs rather than trying to scare bloggers. The bloggers are the ones on the front lines defending democracy, not the mainstream media. The mainstream media is interested only in defending its bottom line. (Which actually -- at least for those that are publicly traded -- they are required by law to do. How did we end up with such laws that strike at the heart of the First Amendment?)The mainstream media is scared. After the tenth anniversary of Yahoo!, they haven't figured out yet what to do with the Internet. In a desperate bid, the Washington Post just bought Slate -- a marriage as divine as AOL/Time Warner. Here are two quick suggestions for any mainstream media moguls who happen to be reading this:
- Provide deep links to primary source documents like the bloggers do (court decisions, legislative bills, corporate press releases, etc.)
- Allow the readership to vote stories up to the front page. (Advanced: provide for affinity groups, in the manner of Amazon.)
It's not that simple, of course. The mainstream media is afraid of losing access to information sources who also happen to be subjects of news stories from time to time -- e.g., the White House. There is also probably a bit of old-fashioned snobbery, that they're here to tell us the news, not to give us primary sources nor to let us participate in editorial decisions.The first mainstream media outlet that can leverage its brand, overcome these hurdles, and embrace the nature of the Internet (namely, linking and collaboration) stands to make a financial killing while simultaneously living up to their charge by the founding fathers of being our "guardian of liberty."
I'm ex-Navy (US Navy). One thing I noticed while serving was a distinct reaction us "smurfs" had when "kahkis" (officers and chiefs) were present. Neither group could relax. Relax in the sense of lowering formalities, we continued to show the exact same military bearing and the excessive drinking didn't start till the cheifs and officers left. I learned, that there is good reason to seperate your social life and your professional life and gaurd this seperation fiercly.
Companies enforcing their regulation beyond the scope of their assets (workspace as far as I'm concerned) is both ignoble, and if it's not illegal it should be.
Instead of companies accepting the fact they are increasingly subject to public opinion (Internet, blogs, free communications to Hong Kong etc.), they prefer to oppress us and fire those that pop off hints that investors and share holders might not have known. I bet companies wouldn't like it one bit if I told them that if I am to abide by their corporate policy, on my free time, then they should pay me the overtime ontop of my salary for 24hrs work per day; 7 days a week, 52 weeks a year. Microsoft wouldn't even last long with employee pay being that high!
I very much disagree with the extortion these companies are pushing onto the workers. But, there is a precedent that the companies might use.
I'm a government worker. I hold a clearance. I'm not paid 24/7 all year round to... maintain my clearance... however, I gladly do so becuase I work for the government and the nature of my job. It's complicated I suppose, here's the difference in another way... I gladly pay taxes to support my government, but I do not want to live under the thumb of a corporate monopoly. That's the best way I can put it. Companies are different, and they are in NO position to enforce their policies on me while I'm not on the clock.
I say that every person that works for any public company should open up a blog. Every one of us, and talk about our work on our blogs. They CAN'T fire the entire work force, even if they tried the government would step in and settle matters.
Watch out, here comes Big-Business!
It bears repeating, in BOLD. Freedom of speech is not a license to do something illegal, unethical, or even for you to say things otherwise inappropriate for a person of your particular position in society.
Well that last part is awfully ripe for abuse. As a citizen of my country, is it inappropriate for me to say that I don't always like my country's social-policy laws, fiscal laws, or the wars that my government keeps getting us into?
I don't care for the idea that the constitution gives me specific rights, but government+business work together (intentionally or not) to make me effectively not be able to exercise those rights.
I am not a sig.
Maybe the real problem here is people who assume that because only a couple of close friends talk to them about their blog, that they are the only people who read it. Or, more importantly, the only people who can read it.
Whether it feels so or not, a blog is public. Anyone can read it. That includes your boss, your MD, your legal department, your colleagues, your parents, your partner -- in short, any and all of the people you criticise, insult, or slander. If you wouldn't wish any of those people to read it, then don't put it on your blog. D'oh...
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.