Essay On Ethical Issues Of Social Media

Register to read the introduction… Legal challenges begin when employers attempt to control the how, when and why current employees use social media sites. A leading concern for employers is when employees choose to use social media websites. Employee’s use of social media websites can lead to a decrease in production and distracted personnel. For an employer the distraction an employee can be problematic. Not only are distracted employees more likely to get into costly accidents the quality of the product they are producing can be affected and may present a safety issue to product users. The two areas that are the most difficult to construct rules around are how and why such sites are used. Employers need to be careful not to construct social media polices that are not overly broad. While a clear business need exists to protect proprietary information, employers should also be careful not to exceed their bounds and attempt to prevent employees from organizing and voicing their opinions on work conditions. If an employer attempts to prevent employees from organizing to voice opinions on current working conditions the company’s social media policy would violate of Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act. While employers have been successful at winning lawsuits pertaining to termination of employees based on a single disparaging remark made by an employee as soon as other employees begin to become involved the courts tend to rule in favor of the employees. (Hidy …show more content…
The first of these is the Social Networking Online Protection Act. The proposed bill would make it illegal for employers to ask applicants for private social networking credentials and passwords. While several state legislations have already passed similar regulations, this represents the first congressional attempt at passing such laws. (Stern n.p.) The second piece of legislation being considered is the Password Protection Act of 2012. This act is the more comprehensive of the two pieces of legislation being considered. While this Password Protection Act will still prevent employers from forcing potential or current employees to provide passwords for personal social networking accounts it extends the protection further to any computer that is not owned by the employer. Without narrowly defining the technology the bill applies to changes can be made to accommodate future developments in technology and methods of communication are developed. (Calabrese