If your company cares about its online reputation and proprietary information, then chances are that you have a social media policy to guide employees about what they can and can’t say about the company on facebook, twitter, and other social media outlets.
Most companies have adopted some kind of social media policy, but not all of them are legal. Lately, the NLRB has been involved with several lawsuits around protected speech and employee rights in social media cases. In most of these lawsuits, the employer was at fault because their policies contain some provisions that go too far in limiting speech and are unlawful under the National Labor Relations Act.
With the goal of helping employers navigate the rules, the NLRB recently published seven examples of legal and illegal social media policies, complete with explanations in plain English as to which parts of the examples are legal or not.
If part of your job is to write or enforce company policies, you should take a look at these examples and see how your social media policy measures up:
Report of the Acting General Counsel Concerning Social Media Cases
NLRB Office of the General Counsel, Division of Operations-Management Memorandum OM 12-59, May 30, 2012
Tags: social media policy