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Anniston, Alabama To Censor Employees' Facebook Pages
ISurfTooMuch writes "If you're a city employee in Anniston, AL, you'd better watch what you say on Facebook. Under a proposal being considered by the City Council, employees would be banned from posting anything 'negative' or 'embarrassing' about the city. Note that they aren't talking about official city pages here, but employees' personal pages. Anyone care to educate these clowns on the existence of the First Amendment?"
They're not passing a law, they're making rule of employment. You want a job with us, you don't badmouth us. That's perfectly reasonable, whether a private or public employer. If an employee doesn't like it, they can quit. It's that simple.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
This reminds me of this story, where a teacher who appeared on the Howard Stern show for a contest (ugliest guy and hottest wife) was fired for it. It seems that the state has no problem firing people they don't like.
This is far from a settled issue; there's a lot of complicated case law wending its way through the courts.
You are free to say anything you want, and free to feel the consequences.
Folks on the private side can get fired for not following a companies PR policies on even non-defamatory public comments (usually translated to mean that anything you say publicly about a company while employed there must be approved first). Public entities are a little different, and are covered by different laws, but the general rule stands that bad mouthing the hand that feeds you is not smart.
Whistle blowing for real grievances, safety issues, and illegal acts are a different story, and it is unlikely that laws such as this preempt whistle blowing laws.
It's generally understood that you don't badmouth your employer, even if you work for the government.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I think its about time city officials officially get paid to browse facebook during business hours.
Now if they could just find some reason to keep their farmville farms in top shape while monitoring other city workers crops.
It's never a good thing to see my home state on Slashdot, let alone my home town.
I have to say, I don't like this policy. One is not generally supposed to badmouth one's employer, but badmouthing one's government is patriotic and should be encouraged. That's how things get fixed.
Anyone care to educate these clowns on the existence of the First Amendment?
First Amendment allows you can say whatever you like, with few exceptions. It does not, however, protect you from being responsible for the consequences of what you said. If you are badmouthing your employer on a publicly visible page with your name attached, you are committing career suicide, regardless of your employer. They can either get rid of you, or make it miserable for you to maintain your employment. If you must vent, do it offline, or privatize your page and be sure you don't have co-workers as "friends". That's being responsible, and shielding yourself from these consequences so many forget about.
and this place sucks a seriously huge bag of dicks. Wait, they only monitor facebook right?
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Rights
You don't know much about con-law do you?
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.. they'll never actually fire someone for badmouthing the city - they'll just terminate your employment.
I'll never understand why people thought giving companies the ability to fire for "no" reason was a good thing - all it does is let them fire you for *any* reason (legal or not)
Somebody explain to me again how Facebook guarantees the name you sign up for a Facebook account with is your real name and is traceable to your employer. Because you know, anybody stupid enough to use their real name when criticizing their employer probably should be fired for having bad judgement!
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
It was slightly farcical. We argued that it was nothing defamatory and fair commentary. The next day, the entire department posted 'Company X's Media Policy is a joke' as their status.
Of course, if they tried to monitor Slashdot comments, the entire IT department where I work is going to be looking for a job on Monday.
Oh, and another thought. I think it is amazing that we have gone so far down the PC (political correctness) trail that somewhere along the way we forgot how to listen, argue (as in illustrating a point), and resolve issues. Anymore it is a competition of who has the biggest equipment, who is paying the bills, who your friends are, or what organization you belong to. Management (the City in this case) should listen, the employee(s) should be encouraged to argue their grievance, more listening and then a mutually beneficial solution should follow. Not always of course, but at least that should be the goal regardless of sex, creed, affiliation, and all those other things we are not supposed to judge one another by; even though everyone does.
Then the bastards win. Because you're afraid. Fuck all that. This is just another case of the old generation trying to impose its rules and morals and secrets on us. Part of the reason we are smarter than they were is that we have opened all the doors and windows behind which they used to rape their sisters and beat their wives.
I live just outside of Anniston. The local paper. the Anniston Star, runs stories on the city council several times a week. It's awesome entertainment, Believe me when I say that the Anniston city council is a complete joke. One of the council members stated that the reason they want to trample on the first amendment rights of their employees (and understand that this is just not about posting on Facebook at work) is that comments made on Facebook could embarrass the city. Which is completely ridiculous considering the City council has been the #1 source of embarrassment for the city for a couple of years now. The last couple of months they have been conducting an "inquiry" at tremendous expense, apparently on the general subject of "bad stuff" that's going on at the city, But it's really about the ego of one council member who was not happy at the results of an investigation conducted by the police department and who was also attempting to punish a police officer who criticised the council member on Facebook, as well as take revenge on a judge who ruled against him.
The mayor and the various council members fight and argue like school children continuously. One of the council members files multiple law suits based on idiotic grounds. In their "inquiry" they have issued subpoena after subpoena, many of which are quashed because they're so damn ridiculous. This latest issues regarding Facebook is just one in a long list of laughable shenanigans perpetrated by the council. Honestly, a reality show based on these people would be awesome and would be the one reality show I would watch. You wouldn't even have to edit anything, just broadcast the council meetings live on Comedy Central. The truth is far more hilarious and amusing than any group of video editors could conjure,
FAQs are evil.