Does Your Company Need a Written Social Media Policy?

Video Transcript:

Hi, I’m Kraig Marton and I do the employment law here in the firm.

Should an Employer Have a Written Social Media Policy?

Absolutely.  Companies should have a social media policy that provides guidelines to the employees about what can and can’t be done and what can and can’t be said.  Now I also suggest that employers currently check with their counsel because that is in such a state of flux because of activities in the last year by the National Labor Relations Board, but, yes, there absolutely should be social media policies.  It’s only fair to the employee and employer if they both know what the rules are.

Can an Employee Get in Trouble for What They Put on Facebook or Instagram?

Interestingly, an employee can get in series trouble for what they write but in turn, an employer can get in serious trouble for what they do about what an employee writes.  It probably is wrong for an employee to trash their employer, to trash their company, and it may be wrong for an employer to take action against an employee for trashing the company because there are some decisions that have come out in the last year out of the National Labor Relations Board that suggest that employee has a right to say bad things about an employer if professional and not defamatory as part of what’s called the right to concerted action.  The law is up in the air about what an employer can or can’t do right now when bad stuff is said about it on Facebook because an employer can’t stop employees from talking to each other about work conditions and Facebook’s considered a mode of communication for employees to speak to each other.