Should you be held liable in a workplace for content you produce online?

[Richie]

Do you think outside of a work environment an employee should be held liable at all times to protect their companies professional image or should your personal space be your time to express yourself as you please.

A lot of people put in their twitter description 'views are my own and not of my employee' but that doesn't always seem to be the case.


I remember listening to a story from a youtuber, he basically needed to pay for his training as an air-force pilot and to do so he did some 'performances' on a popular seductive live web cam website. Someone from youtube seen him and reported him to his commanding officer. As a result, he lost a job he had built up for several years.

I understand the above is an extreme case as the air-force is different and after all he was exchanging inappropriate live images to the public but I've heard of a lot of cases were people had been sacked for simply exchanging words online, a popular actor from the show coronation street was axed a number of years ago as he made a rap song about rape, which was published before his career on the show started. I've seen plenty of other stories online of pettier things happening, can't remember the stories in full though.

If you can't express yourself outside of a workplace, is that breaching your freedom of speech?

Once i get a full-time career i think i might hang up my internet boots, i'd be terrified of accidentally saying the wrong thing online and getting the sack. A p45 is never a good way to present a new employer.

[buttons]

yeah this girl on tumblr made comics about how dramatic tumblr sjws were and they sent it to her boss along with child porn? they kept sending him stuff until they got what they wanted. she got fired/resigned mutually but i heard she got her job back. she worked to help immigrants but that didn't matter to them, all they cared about was getting someone who said something offensive fired??? it didn't matter her actions in real life, only her words, apparently.

anyway no i don't think they should be, unless it's something about the company or employees then yeah, maybe. otherwise it's just getting out of hand. everyone has the right to an opinion.

someone being offended by your words shouldn't be enough to get you fired.

[Brad]

The internet is an easy database for blackmail. I would say yes because a lot of people I know that hire people actually "stalk" the applicants Facebook so that they are choosing someone that presents themselves with dignity and would be an advocate for their work.

You wouldn't want to hire someone who has a history about talking and posting about how bad their workplace is.

[Kyle]

So long is there is no direct link to the online platform and your real life identity/career then online actions shouldn't matter. If it's public and can be traced back to you because of personally identifying information then imo u shouldn't be doing anything that might lose a job/chance of one.


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[dbgtz]

Only where it's relevant should it be related in my opinion (e.g. posting about how you wish all animals were dead and you're a vet or something along those lines). I don't see why it should be the case when the two things are entirely different, but most companies are afraid of the potential bad PR. We all know how well that went when Jamie Oliver hired the convicted paedophile. That may be a tad more extreme, but it's the same kind of mindset of boycotting some place because of the staff who work there.

Basically, I understand why they do it, but don't agree in the slightest. I rarely use Facebook and anything else I use is fairly unknown to non-online people. The only real threat is my Reddit account, since it is also my name on a few other things but I can't see a potential employer ever finding out.