jeber
Joined: Dec 19, 2002
Posts: 4194
Location: The Village
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 Posted: Sun Aug 21, 2005 10:46 pm Post subject: |
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Safe-Blogging Tips
* Don't write anything you wouldn't want your boss or your mother to read. Your words could last for years, so keep future jobs and relationships in mind.
* Never divulge company secrets. That's grounds for firing.
* Avoid saying anything that could hurt your employer's business or reputation.
* Whistle-blogging - complaining about discrimination or illegal activity at work - may be protected activity, but you'll be on firmer ground if you go through company channels or contact the appropriate government agency first.
* There is no First Amendment protection - right to free speech - in private employment. Think about that if you're tempted to express controversial opinions, use offensive language, or tell the world about your private life and fantasies.
* You are more vulnerable if you blog on company equipment at work than if you use your own computer at home.
* Some groups recommend anonymous blogging, but that can be challenging. Revealing a few stray facts - your birthday, for instance - can trip you up. Telling friends about the blog can blow your cover, too.
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Blogging and the Workplace
Results of a survey of 279 human-resources professionals in January by the Society for Human Resource Management.
25% of companies perform Internet-assisted background checks on candidates.
21% perform general Internet searches on job candidates.
3% read job candidates’ blogs.
41% say they do not use the Internet to learn about job candidates.
3% had disciplined an employee for blogging in the last year. |
More from the article in the Philadelphia Inquirer:
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About 10 million Americans now write blogs, ranging from the confessional and edgy to the technical and mundane, estimates Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. Thirty-five million read them.
For businesses, blogs and other forms of personal Internet communication constitute a new frontier fraught with promise and peril. On the one hand, companies are scrambling to use them as a recruiting and marketing tool, and are encouraging some employees to blog. On the other, they are wondering how to deal with the damage that current and former employees and dissatisfied customers can do on the Web.
The result is a "mild level of social panic," Rainie said.
"The lawyers and the marketers are, in many cases, at least in covert war with each other."
...employment lawyers caution that the First Amendment was designed to protect people from the government, not private employers. While a few states have passed laws preventing companies from reaching into employees' private, legal activities, Pennsylvania and New Jersey have not. Here, unless you're blogging about a handful of protected topics or have a union that protects you, you can be fired for anything - or nothing.
All bloggers, they said, would be wise to write as if their bosses, future bosses or grandmothers were reading over their shoulders. While many currently are recommending that bloggers with incendiary messages write anonymously, some experts say that won't work if a company really wants to find out who you are. And it won't look good once you're caught. |
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