* Bloggers at work gone wild
What would you do if you saw sensitive or offensive material about your organization on the Web? Perhaps you would contact your corporate counsel and discuss methods for applying pressure to have the material removed; if necessary, your organization might even initiate legal proceedings for a tort under the laws of libel, protection of trade secrets, violation of copyright or misuse of trademarks.
But what would you do if the defamatory material were written by one of your employees?
Pattie Walsh, head of Minter Ellison’s employment practice in Greater China, wrote a succinct summary of how to handle employee blogging in the magazine _China Staff_ in October 2006 (Volume 12, Number 9, page 36). (I found the article through the Kreitzberg Library databases at Norwich University, but there’s a purchasable version available from Access my Library.) She began with this apparently real incident reported by a reader:
“Whilst surfing the Internet for consumer discussion about our products, one of our managers came across a blog diary by one of our sales staff. The content of her blog was of great concern to us; it contained satirical anecdotes of her office life, referring to the company, her managers and colleagues in a defamatory and disparaging manner, and naming the company as her employer. The employee has used a pseudonym to pen her blog, but from her descriptions and anecdotes, she can be easily identified. We have undertaken a review of her Internet usage while at work, and we suspect that much of the blog is written during work hours. What can we do to discipline this employee? How can we restrict employees’ blogging activities and deter this sort of conduct?”
Putting aside the question of inappropriate use of company resources during working hours, this employee’s behavior should be covered by corporate policy. In framing your employment contracts, make it clear to everyone that written, monitored and enforced policy forbids damaging the reputation or security of your organization by posting inappropriate materials in public that identify the organization.
Venues for posting disparaging remarks include personal Web pages, blogs, and social networking sites such as MySpace and FaceBook.
In my next column I will address misguided protests about free speech as a defense against such a policy.
For further reading:
You can download lecture materials in PDF or PPT formats on defamation, trademarks and copyright from the cyberlaw course taught by Professor Julie Tower-Pierce and myself.
