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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."
Um ... yes, under many conditions you do. The Federal Government isn't much concerned about that, but the States certainly are. A wrongful firing suit can cost a company a lot of money. So don't assume, as an employer, that you have the right to terminate any employee, at any time, for any reason. For that matter, so far as blogs are concerned there are laws to protect whistleblowers. Still ... if you dislike your employer enough to want to badmouth them in public you should probably just look for another job and be done with it.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
I think part of the issue here is people have this perception of the so-called "internet" as a sort of anything-goes space of freedom where ordinary rules of human conduct are relaxed. People on-line say the most outrageous things and have access to images and descriptions of extreme situations and behavior that you would never see in real life.
In reality, the internet is just a bunch of computers linked together. But what happens is people only concentrate on the wild stuff and the exhortations of so-called "freeedom" advocates who push the internet as some sort of intellectual wild west or something, and they do things like spread work gossip or post naughty pictures of themselves in their work uniform. Then they get fired.
I think we all share some of the blame for this and need to be more thoughtful about what we say and do online. Remember, the next time you link to goatse, it could cost someone their job.
If I had mod points, I'd mod you up to +1000000.
Seriously, why don't people get that? It's not that hard.
You have freedom of speech. You're not going to be imprisoned or tortured for what you say. On the other hand, you can be fired from your job. Your s/o might leave you. Your kids might hate you. You might blow through your entire life savings unable to get another job.
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.
I currently have no clever signature witicism to add here.
Yes, employment is "at will". Does that mean that employers should have the write to fire an employee for publishing a novel written on personal time? Or should society place limits on employers rights to fire employees over off work hours speech unrelated to their job? Personally, I think giving employers the right to squelch employees by threat of arbitrary termination hands them a bit too much power. What you say (unrelated to work) on your own time is your own business and not that of the employer. JMO. --M
I go through alot of resumes.
:
With the advent of blogging, I can't believe:
1. The number of people who give a link to their website on their resume
2. Have a blog
3. Refer to themselves negatively in their blog
"I couldn't find the motivation to get out of bed".
"I'm a loser, I can't find a job".
"I just don't feel like working".
Hey, let's call these people...
This is precisely why I started http://www.novoice.org/.
To provide an outlet for those who are afraid to speak out about their jobs.
- unethically exploiting employees
- conducting business in an illegal manner
- killing people in the course of business
- about to kill people in the course of business
- conducting business in a non-competitive, monopolistic fashion
you are morally bound to speak out about it, on your blog, to the press and to whomever will listen. (If your employer is a Chinese mining company, you should just quit your job and become a full-time blogger.)Please don't tell me that a corporation "feeds" me. I make them a fair trade-I do my work for them on their terms for a certain number of hours a day, and they pay me a set amount of money for those hours. Once I go home, they are not obligated to continue paying me for the hours I spend there, so why should they have any say in what I say or do with them?
To fight the war on terror, stop being afraid.
They certainly don't have any say in what you do at home.
But them continuing to employ you is a courtesy, kind of like you refraining from slurring them online is a courtesy.
Again, just FYI, "wrongful termination" means being fired for membership in a protected class. So, if you get fired because of your race, religion, gender, national origin, age (if over 40), whatever else is in Title 7 (can't remember off of the top of my head), that's wrongful termination. Plus there are some states that grant further protections, such as marital status, sexual orientation, etc.
Wrongful termination is different from, and often confused with, being fired for "cause" or not. Firing for "cause" only impacts whether or not you can collect unemployment benefits, and varies from state to state. Wrongful termination is a cause of action that allows you to sue your former employer for damages, and is limited (generally) to firing for being a member of a protected class.
Again, this is all U.S. law, and won't necessarily count if you are a member of a union or have a bonafide employment contract.
"That's not even wrong..." -- Wolfgang Pauli
I'm using an example from a poster already in this thread...
Boss sees you walking into a strip bar on a Saturday when you are off work. He does not like it and fires you.. It appears based on your comment, that is perfectly acceptable.
Now back up a few months in time to your initial interview with that same boss. He can not ask you in that interview if you visit strip bars after work.
It seems odd that he could be allowed to fire you because you go to strip bars but he is not allowed to ask you that in an interview.
What this appears to boil down to is, he can fire you because he wants to but he better not admit it was because he saw you go to a strip bar after work. Where this would become questionable is if he specifically mentioned his dislike for strip bars many times to you and you happen to see him see you go into one. If you got fired for "no reason" the next Monday, you'd have a good case to fight back. There are a lot of people that can sense when something is going downhill at work and they get a strong feeling the shit is about to hit the fan. If you can prove you were fired for something not directly work related, you do have an appeal process. The hard part is proving it.
Bad boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly.
Baylor is a private religious institution, and therefore allowed to discriminate. For the same reason, Bob Jones University was allowed to continue their ban on interracial dating until they dropped it a couple of years ago due to public pressure. Religious institutions are one of the only groups that do not have to follow civil rights laws and most other labor laws, since the government has been hesitant to regulate religious groups. And yes, you will find cases where people have abused this situation, disguising a business as a church.
"You're kidding, right?"
"No, why?"
"Well, all the code I've written for other employers is owned by them. It would be improper for me to disclose it. I have written GPL code for some of those employers, but they did not distribute binaries to me so I can't disclose that either.
I understand that you probably want to see if I can "cut the mustard", right?"
"Duh!"
"Then give me a coding task that should take, oh, a week or two. I'll likely get some working code back to you in 48 hours. We can even do some refinement cycles in that week, to see how flexible I am, and how open to expandability my designs are."
"You're hired!"
"No review of my code first?"
"No, not necessary! Anyone that bold must know their stuff!!"
"O.K. Put an offer in writing. I've got a plane to catch."
Later...
Wife: "So, you gonna take the offer?"
"Not unless it's so good that I could stand to work for idiots who don't even check my creds. Sheesh!!"
Yes, I would have sent them a custom sample of code -- even assigned rights to them: they took the time and effort to fly me in and intervew me, after all: worth a KLOC or two. No, I will not work for people that don't check their final cut interview candiate's skills. I have been known to turn down jobs on the basis of the incompetence of the people interviewing me. I have been known to accept jobs precisely because the interviews were "tough" and the interviewers sharp.
You could've hired me.
Actually, yes it does. If it doesn't, then each and every nation that has ever existed has had absolute freedom of speech; after all, even in Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, Communist China and North Korea, you could go to the nearest town center and shout "$(LEADER) sucks !". You would be shot or sent to Siberia for it, but hey, freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences, right ?
Please note that I'm not commenting about the right (or lack of it) of the company to fire whoever they will for whatever reason. I'm simply pointing out that the parent posters claim is completely nonsensical.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
This seems a fairly good place to point out that the first amendment is an injunction against the government, not against private companies and individuals. Though there are laws that extend limited protections, such as whistle-blower laws.
So yes your employer can fire you for saying things he doesn't want to hear, but the government can't lock you up for your opinions (in theory, exceptions do exist).
Mycroft
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