Facebook has over 500 million active users.
Twitter users are recording an average of 55 million tweets a day.
If an employee files suit against your client, what are the odds the employee uses social media? I'd say they're pretty good. Just imagine missing the Facebook post:
"I'll do whatever it takes to get back at my employer."
The first thing I do after I receive a copy of an employee-filed complaint -- before I read the complaint -- is check the plaintiff-employee out on Facebook and other social networking sites.
I print any information that employee has made publicly available. I save any pictures the employee has published online and I send a list of the employee's friends to my employer-client to cross-check against a list of current and former employees. I do this because, generally, a Facebook user will allow friends greater access to online content.
Why do I want this information? Because many social media users do not filter what they publish online -- they find social media cathartic. So, for every couple of banal "I'm going to the movies with John tonight" online posts, you'll find an "I just had the worst day in the office because …" post.
Don't believe me? Check out this, this, this, and this blog post from Delaware labor and employment attorney Molly DiBianca, who writes about how a waitress lost her job for a complaint made on Facebook.
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Source: law.com
By: Eric. B. Meyer
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1 comments:
I think younger generations are especially prone to these problems. "Older generations" - those that remember pre-internet and even pre-computers - have a certain awareness of how quickly and easily information is now made public because it just didn't used to happen as it does now. Town gossip spread as fast as a phone call or a neighborly visit.
I think that younger users, now having grown up in a time of constant contact and access, are a little de-sensitized to the permanency of computer storage and the speed with which data flies.
I believe those characteristics will make the Facebook-generation a particularly interesting set of employees once they reach their twenties and thirties.
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