Gavel to Gavel: Pitfalls of monitoring social media

From Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and MySpace to Classmates.com, social media is everywhere.

The electronic age has made communication effortless and instantaneous, without boundaries. No longer must employees gather at the water cooler to discuss work – they don’t even have to be on the same continent.

Instead, employees post to Facebook; they text; they e-mail; they blog. Workplace incidents go viral with the touch of a smart-phone screen and an upload to YouTube. Business trade secrets are laid bare to the world with a few strokes of the keyboard.

And not just employees are using social media.

Companies now have websites, Facebook pages and Twitter accounts, through which they market their products. Human resources departments run background checks on applicants by perusing social media sites.

Is all this instantaneous communication good? Could there be a downside to having a company Facebook page or employee chat group? Can accessing public information on the Internet be a liability for an employer?

The answer to all these questions is yes.

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Source: journalrecord.com
By: Byrona Maule