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Telstra Lays Down Law On Social Media
Kerrieanne writes to tell us that Australian telecommunications giant Telstra has become the first major player down under to lay down the law with respect to social media. Still recovering from the shakeup surrounding a Telstra worker using the name of the communications minister on Twitter, they have released a six-page set of guidelines on the use of Facebook, Twitter, and other similar websites for both company and personal use. "Under the guidelines, which are backed up with the threat of disciplinary action, employees using sites on official Telstra business should disclose who they are, ensure they do not give away confidential information and treat other users with respect. They are required to complete an accreditation process and undergo training to update their 'knowledge on emerging social trends and evolving best practice in social media.'"
TVEITPAMOADNNRTVOME
(The views expressed in this post are mine only and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employer)
Sincerely,
Hugh Jackman (Mrs.)
"They are required to complete an accreditation process and undergo training to update their 'knowledge on emerging social trends and evolving best practice in social media.'"
So does this mean that trolls are going to be getting certified now?
A bullet may have your name on it but splash damage is addressed "To whom it may concern."
In other words: stop expecting to be paid for twittering all day. Good for them.
... that Telstra even understand the term social-networking!
Problem is Telstra tries to "lay down the law" when it comes to personal use on your own time at home!
Make SELinux enforcing again!
... employees have to be told to disclose who they are and treat other users with respect, and not to give away confidential information is yet another brick in the wall of evidence that Liberal Western society is on the downfall.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Comment removed based on user account deletion
http://twitter.com/stephenconroy http://departmentofinternets.com/ fake stephen conroy rocks!
Did telstra not have an IT acceptable use policy that would have been signed along with his contract? I work at a bank and i can;t even get to social-networking sites and if i had been posting what he had i would have probably been fired. If he had done it at home no-one would have cared, i guess the lesson is don't be stupid?
But on a different note, Telstra lick nuts.
What I do off time is no one's business.
Fuck 'em.
I can imagine them making a Facebook police force:
"Officer Jack has poked you. Poke Back? Ignore"
"Officer Jack wrote on your wall: You have broken rule 325 prohibiting uploading embarrassing pictures of your co-workers. You are sentenced to the punishment of tagging your friends in one of those annoying viral pictures."
"Officer Jack has changed his status: I am the LAW"
'knowledge on emerging social trends and evolving best practice in social media.'
Soooo... some 56 year old CEO who regularly asks questions like, "Have you heard of these two new sites, 'Tweets' and 'Twitter'?" is going to ask his best 47 year olds (the hip kids) to form a committee to write the official company policy so they can tell the 24 year old kid, who has been using social media for nearly half his life, about the best practices in social media?
Man, that sure is some big, clankin' hubris you got there, old man. You may well be giving Steve Ballmer a run for the "head stuffed furthest up one's nethers" prize.
How 'bout this: Telstra announced that they would be forming a committee of 23 year olds to explain to the executives what social networking is.
I'm closer to the old guy than the young gun, but lets face it - the kids are the ones who are defining this disruptive technology. Discount them at your peril.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
Anyone have a source for a copy of this inspiring document?
Australia is predominantly female. It figures that they are going to be "socially correct". But, they could admit that they are prejudiced. What about some old dinosaur, like myself? A damned cave man, who just doesn't GIVE A SHIT that some little wench might be offended that I belch and fart sometimes? She is going to MANDATE that I get accredited "on emerging social trends and evolving best practice"? Or what? I can't use her internetz? Silly bitch, when I go Neanderthal on your ass, you WISH THE HELL that YOU had been "accredited on emerging social trends and evolving best practice"!
It makes a man want to puke. We can't even rape and pillage like real men nowadays, and now THIS garbage!
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Problem is Telstra tries to "lay down the law" when it comes to personal use on your own time at home!
I know it's a bit much to ask you to RTFA, but please, can you at least read the summary? Emphasis mine:
"Under the guidelines, which are backed up with the threat of disciplinary action, employees using sites on official Telstra business should disclose who they are, ensure they do not give away confidential information and treat other users with respect.
There's this bit:
If the employee refers to Telstra, they are expected to identify themselves as an employee of the company and ensure they do not imply they are authorised to speak on Telstra's behalf.
...which I'm reasonably sure was intended to apply mostly in cases where an employee refers to Telstra AND in doing so mentions they're employed by Telsra. It's pretty standard/common for corporations to require that- and I know a couple of friends who do it anyway just to cover their asses. Sucks, but...even if you're 100% in the clear, all it takes is one complete idiot who THINKS you're somehow speaking on behalf of the company, and you're in the unemployment line.
Honestly, this is more enlightened than most companies, which haven't addressed these issues and thus employees have no idea what is expected of them. If they don't like it, they can either unionize or find some other way to earn a living.
Please help metamoderate.
Stephen Conroy once had sex with a horse.
Time to reveal my real identity......
I am stephen Conroy, Please vote for me in "biggest douche in the universe" I really need to beat John Edwards.
It's good to see at least one company making sure that employees representing the company are identified as such regardless of the media.
However, this should be universal.
Astroturfing and all forms of anonymous marketing and advertising should be illegal. Company legal structures require accountability and accountability is impossible when company agents act anonymously. There should be serious consequences, including fines and jail terms, for egregious offenders.
That includes talking on social media sites, fake letters to the editor, conversations in bars, mystery advertising and sponsorship. Everywhere.
Anonymous marketing destroys social trust, and over the long term that's a very bad thing.
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The USA is <5% of the world's population. It is statistically insignificant.
Telstra are only the "first major player" if you don't count a lot of federal and state government departments. I have friends who work at both state and federal levels and are banned from using Facebook even in their personal time. Haven't asked about Twitter, but I would assume the same applies for any of them.
That summary either needs clarification, or is just plain wrong.
I don't therefore I'm not.
There's an error in their logic - quite simply
", employees using sites on official Telstra business should disclose who they are"
Umm, the fake steven conroy was NOT on official Telstra business.
Telstra think their employees are always on the clock - as shown by a court case over the unfair dismissal of a Telstra employee that got up to sexual activities after an offsite staff Christmas party in February 2007 (Telstra can't do anything on time - not even a Christmas party). The two men involved were given nothing but a talking to and the woman involved was sacked - I'm sure the imported manager would have made her wear a scarlet letter if he could since it the false dismissal ruling was appealed all the way to the high court which would have cost into seven figures.
You are a fake! /.
Gee, your presumed name was a dead give away!
Its so simple I even can't get credit for it.
After all everybody know there are no women in
But... the future refused to change.
Telstra's upper management are almost exclusively US imports so you can't blame it on Australian factors.
They are also the weird aberration of a government owned monopoly that has recently gone private and has the worst of both worlds. Think of a department of motor transport mixed with Enron run by a guy that has bounced from one failure to the next all his career but still demands to be treated like a rock star. Thankfully he's taking his payout of millions and his mediocre cronies and leaving soon.
Telstra is the AT&T of australia.
Telstra is a company that needs to fail so that the australian telecommunications industry can change and adapt to new technologies and trends.
The bind for the australian government is that when it was privatized it was not broken up so this one company owns something like 90% of telecommunication infrastructure.
This just proves Telstra is now american with no sense of humor.
What you can't have satire anymore?
You "can't take the piss" out of anyone?
Anonymity banned again!
You're either FOR Telstra or your AGAINST it (and, in the latter case, subject to disciplinary action). ... and all this is AFTER "The Three Amigos" (Sol Trujillo and company) have been packed-up & sent back to America?!?
I guess this indicates the underlying Australian fervor against anonymous whistleblowers ("Never dob in a mate") ...or thinking people with opinions of their own, who work "inside" a monopolistic company...
just when we were starting to see a few hints that good ol' Aussie values might begin to regrow at Telstra...
Telstra proves us wrong...again!
Optimism just doesn't pay with Telstra... it's just BAD... through & through.
Even in USA, trying to put a cap on users' downloaded Internet data MAKES THE NEWS...
while - in Australia - the Telstra legacy of capped downloaded Internet data, continues to be embraced by lazy or greedy Australian ISPs.
Telstra still charges $150 / "excess" GB downloaded on some wired Internet plans (eg, Big Pond Cable or Big Pond ADSL, in all flavors).
And lots of Australian ISP's come close, eg, charging $100 / GB.
Stockholm wins (again), eg, with $11 for unlimited, symmetric 100 Mbps Internet service, because its local gov't owns the infrastructure.
I seem to recall Telstra (or its predecessor) was gov't owned when the company was rolling out the Internet (often in ways, that precluded competition: eg, RIMs at exchanges, so only Big Pond Cable was faster than dial-up).
This was possible because a monopolistic company owns most of the infrastructure.
Australia should learn much from Sweden, especially now, as it plans its own new roll-out of FTTH:
Fast, cheap & public... just like most roadways.
Cave Man era Internet:
With Telstra, you're always having to slow down (ie, after "throttling" by your Telstra-legacy ISP, down to 64 Kbps (!) ...eg, after "your allocated data" is used up) -or- pay a toll (ie, another cost-slug, for data at speed.
I say: Let Telstra die with the makers of Hummers & other hugely CO2-emitting vehicles...
Bring on Stockholm-era, sustainable Internet, even in Australia... and soon!
Is NO Australian-related story too insignificant and worthless to keep ScuttleMonkey/kdawson/timothy/Zonk and the other Australia fetishists from spamming the front page of Slashdot with them?
Are we going to have to see every single fucking vaguely tech-related story from and about Australia plastered on the front page?
Wasn't it bad enough when Slashdot was almost fanatically devoted to keeping all but American stories at bay? Now "It's all about Australia"?
Your patriotism is possibly commendable, but the fact remains that, as a nation, Aussie is small and not very significant, and of no more interest to most people than any other small, insignificant nation.
Sure, sometimes interesting things happen in Australia, but interesting things happen just about everywhere...Yet it's getting to the point where we seldom get to read about anything unless it involves Australia or Australians, thanks to certain Slashdot "editors".
Why not go and found your own Slashdot? Call it Slashdot.com.au. Tell yourselves and the world that you're eempordend and seegneefeecent, and stop spamming the living fuck out of the real Slashdot!
It's good to see at least one company making sure that employees representing the company are identified as such regardless of the media................Anonymous marketing destroys social trust, and over the long term that's a very bad thing.
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I'm going to take this as your saying that company's should not use social network sites for advertising purposes.
I must admit I did not think of that but I agree with you.
The background on this story is someone in telstra set up a blog claiming to be the federal minister for communications Stephen Conroy.
It was a brilliant "piss take" but it does not look like telstra saw the funny side. To me this 6 page rule and guidelines "bible" sounds a bit over the top.
... there being the following sentence:
Section 5A - Photographs ... When doing flirty boob shots, nipples are not to be in view. In addition when acting like a complete whore in front of the camera refrain from taking shots in the bathroom. This is especially important if you are an absent minded bimbo who forgets to flush...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Link to the actual Telsra's social media policy itself and the blog post launching it.
A manager at my employer, a large-ish consultancy, set up a LinkedIn group for current employees, alums and interested outsiders, including a Q&A section. A director took over the group and began deleting answers to questions posted by non-employees, replacing the answers with his contact information and 'contact me to discuss'. These were such burning, sensitive questions as 'To what extent should a non-technical manager understand a technology if they are to effectively review work done - for example, SQL code?'
Needless to say, many of the current employees immediately stopped responding to the QA section - whoops! I meant 'adding value'...
At least Telsra published their guidelines, rather than allowing management to jump in and arbitrarily edit employee interactions.
But the P value when I do the regression in R-Project shows that the US population has a P value of .00321 (signifcant) and removing it as a regressor totatlly fubars my 52 week forecast of the amount of bullshit news articles get posted. Now I admit I am using and ARIMA model but I really thing that I have just lost interest in writing anything further...
-=[ Who Is John Galt? ]=-
Anonymous marketing destroys social trust, and over the long term that's a very bad thing. - This is very true, trust is the strongest factor in SMM
Stephen Conroy once had sex with a horse.
Male or female?
Why, without your clothes, you're naked, Miss Dudley!
"...employees using sites on official Telstra business..."
End of article. No story here. Please keep your scandal and outrage prepared for the next false alarm.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
...of modem tones, and the joy abandoning a 300 baud modem for the blazing speed of my first 1200 baud modem...
But still irksome because, being a vet, I was accustomed to 50 Kbps and faster - much faster, in the case of some DARPA gear - and could not believe how slow things were in the "civilian" world. Yet I couldn't get hired by Ma Bell, 'cuz I wasn't allowed to talk about what I had actually worked with, and so had to sit silently fuming as the civvy engineers patronized me before turning me down due to "lack of experience". Thus began decades of hurry up and wait - in all meanings possible - for the 'net.
A(nother?) boring anecdote: One night someplace on the other side of the planet, I abused my power and had a circuit patched up literally around the world. I could pound a sentence into one keyboard, and then kick the wall and glide my chair 12 feet away and watch it come in on another teletype. lollll...the speed of electromagnetic propagation as an impractical exercise.
Orwell: "In a Time of Universal Deceit, telling the Truth is a Revolutionary Act"