Listing your employer on Facebook......

Doom

Hi, was speaking to a friend today about the dangers of too much info on facebook profiles, he told me to NOT to list my employer, if I ever said something out of jest but a bit close to the bone about something, it may be grounds to dismiss me if it went against company guidelines.......:eek:
Well what do you guys think?

kildare.17hmr

Bad bad idea!!

28064212

It's pretty irrelevant whether you list your company on your profile or not

People really need to get over the idea that things on the internet don't matter. Would you expect to get fired if you wrote a letter to everybody you know saying your employer sucks? Or worse, if your profile is public, would you expect to get fired if you hired a billboard saying your employer sucked?

GaryIrv93

In general are employers entitled to view your Facebook / Twitter etc profiles if you have them?

smash

28064212 wrote: »

It's pretty irrelevant whether you list your company on your profile or not

By listing your employer you are in a way playing the part of PR for your company and as such they can dismiss you for things you post on facebook if they consider them to be defamation through association.

GaryIrv93 wrote: »

In general are employers entitled to view your Facebook / Twitter etc profiles if you have them?

No.

28064212

smash wrote: »

By listing your employer you are in a way playing the part of PR for your company and as such they can dismiss you for things you post on facebook if they consider them to be defamation through association

Yeah, perhaps what I should have said was "Not listing your employer doesn't protect you". Listing it makes you more likely to be dismissed, but if you post up "XXX Ltd rips off their customers, and kicks puppies in the face", not listing your employer on your profile won't make it any less likely that they'll fire you.

smash wrote: »

GaryIrv93 wrote: »

In general are employers entitled to view your Facebook / Twitter etc profiles if you have them?

No.

Caution here. Employers can't force you to give them details. They can't force you to give them your username, or your password, and they can't force you to friend them, but if they find your profile through other means (e.g. a google search, or just someone provides a link to your profiles), then they can fire you for stuff you put up

BrianD

GaryIrv93 wrote: »

In general are employers entitled to view your Facebook / Twitter etc profiles if you have them?

They are not entitled too but you should check what your rules and regulations your employer has about behaviour online. Bear in mind that any person can view what you have publicly available.

However, you need to be aware of how the public perceives you and your employment status. Sometimes people can't separate the public you and the private you. So if you are a high profile employee of a company, your private postings may be seen in the context of your employment.

Obviously everything you publish on Facebook is public to some extent and you should always be wary that some remarks may come back and haunt you.

biko

Since this touches on legalities I'm going move it over to Legal Discussion where the intricacies of dismissal for facebook posts can be dissected.
Legal mods, if this doesn't suit, please bounce back to Blogs/Wikis/Social Networks

seamus

Your employer has no entitlement to view your facebook profile nor demand passwords, etc. Such things would be considered private information that the employer cannot reasonably demand access to.

However most employment contracts have a part which mentions that an employee can be disciplined for any behaviour inside or outside of work, which would bring the reputation of the employer into disrepute. I imagine that this doesn't need to even be in your contract. It seems like a fair enough thing.

Basically it means that if you can be associated with your employer while you are doing something dumb, you can be disciplined.

In the case of listing your employer on facebook, it's a "tread carefully" scenario. It would accepted as given that things said on a facebook status are the opinions of the individual and not of the company. So, "I voted for Sinn Fein today", couldn't reasonably be construed to mean that the company supports Sinn Fein.

However, "I had a meeting with Gerry Adams today" could, aside from possibly breaching confidentiality requirements, imply that your employer is working or otherwise associated with Sinn Fein, which may damage their reputation. Depending on what the company does obviously.

If you don't list your employer, then there's no way that the things you say could be associated with your employer, and no reason that they could discipline you.

Manach

28064212 wrote: »

... but if you post up "XXX Ltd rips off their customers, and kicks puppies in the face", not listing your employer on your profile won't make it any less likely that they'll fire you.

Could not the defence of this be a claim that original poster thought that those statements were true, so the burden might fall on the employer to prove an element of maliciousness on the poster's part to justify any firing?

christmas2012

employers are so finnicky about internet use,even in your own off work hours i wouldnt bother,as they could take issue with you in the future over some small thing,dont bother listing them,they may not be cool about it..

28064212

Manach wrote: »

Could not the defence of this be a claim that original poster thought that those statements were true, so the burden might fall on the employer to prove an element of maliciousness on the poster's part to justify any firing?

Burden of proof suggests a legal case, so you're either talking about a defamation claim by the employer (in which case the burden of proof is on the person making the claims), or an employee taking an unfair dismissal case, in which case the employer must show that the dismissal was justified. From here: http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/employment/unemployment_and_redundancy/dismissal/fair_grounds_for_dismissal.html, the relevant category would be Gross Misconduct:

Gross misconduct may give rise to instant (summary) dismissal without notice or pay in lieu of notice. Examples of gross misconduct include assault, drunkenness, stealing, bullying or serious breach of your employer's policies and practices

mikemac1

Facebook for friends
Linkedin for your colleagues and employers

GaryIrv93

BrianD wrote: »

They are not entitled too but you should check what your rules and regulations your employer has about behaviour online. Bear in mind that any person can view what you have publicly available.

However, you need to be aware of how the public perceives you and your employment status. Sometimes people can't separate the public you and the private you. So if you are a high profile employee of a company, your private postings may be seen in the context of your employment.

Obviously everything you publish on Facebook is public to some extent and you should always be wary that some remarks may come back and haunt you.

Thanks for the info. I just remembered being told before to be careful about what you put up, as employers could secretly view you online and might refuse you a job over what you have up, like seamus said. I doubted it a lot at the time. However in Facebook (not sure about Twitter) but in privacy settings you can choose whether or not you want your account to remain public to anyone apart from your friends.

BrianD

GaryIrv93 wrote: »

Thanks for the info. I just remembered being told before to be careful about what you put up, as employers could secretly view you online and might refuse you a job over what you have up, like seamus said. I doubted it a lot at the time. However in Facebook (not sure about Twitter) but in privacy settings you can choose whether or not you want your account to remain public to anyone apart from your friends.

Employers have the amount of access to your profile as you allow them to have its as simple as that. If you have your settings set to public and you post like an idiot that it's open to all to see. Employers have no special or secret way of accessing your social media accounts.

Bear in mind that your profile pic is always visible. So if it's you in a drunken or compromising state then that's the only bit of information that they will have to go on!!