IT Support - Exercising Common Sense Over the Right to “Tweet”.
Posted by The blogging Desk on Wed, Nov 10, 2010
- by Mark, "the Mind", Sarro
I came across an interesting news piece on the BBC News site regarding a Russian Governor who posted a tweet w/photo of an earthworm found in his salad that was served to him during a state dinner at the Kremlin for the German President Christian Wulff. His post was quoted as saying “That’s an original way to show that the lettuce leaf is fresh…”
Well, needless to say the backlash that ensued from the Kremlin’s top foreign policy advisor Sergie Prikhodko would not be gentile. According to the state run news agency RIA Novosti ; he was quoted as saying: "I should probably have advised my lawyer colleagues to add to the list of formulae for assessing governors' performance a provision for 'dismissal on the grounds of imbecility'…"
Exercising common sense would be the lesson learned here; should I really tweet about this considering that I am a government official? …Hmmm, probably not. The same goes for the rest of us in our work and corporate environment. Should we be Tweeting or Facebooking about something that happens at work during work hours? The answer simply and plainly is no. The idea of doing it even after work about something that happened during work would be ill advised. Especially if it is related to your company or someone associated with your company. Many employee contracts/agreements would consider this a breach of contract if you have any type of privacy or confidentiality clause in them.
More and more over the past few years there have been news stories related to incidents involving employees and the social media. There was a local story not so long ago about an employee working for the Philadelphia Eagles posting an opinionated blog (he happened to be diehard fan too) and the result was him losing his job because it was found to be a conflict of interest.
The bottom line is exercise common sense. Don’t Tweet, Myspace or Facebook during company time or off company time about things related to your company. The end result could be losing your job and I bet you would be hard pressed to explain in an interview why you aren’t working where you are anymore…. Hmmm, something to think about…
Great stuff, "The Mind". If you'd like to hear more about the policies that we help introduce to clients, be sure to contact us at your most pleasant convenience!
