Social Media Update: The Stories Keep Coming In
Social networking sites continue to cause problems for many employees, including attorneys. In a recent article entitled "Lawyers "step in it" Through Social Media Incompetence", a number of stories are discussed concerning lawyers who have found themselves in trouble through the use of social media. These include a North Carolina Judge who was reprimanded for "friending" a lawyer in a case he was assigned to, and discussing the case on Facebook; a California lawyer was suspended from practice for 45 days for blogging about a trial in which he served as a juror: a Florida lawyer was fined $1,200 for blogging that a particular judge was "an evil, unfair witch"; and an Illinois public defender had charges filed against him for posting confidential client information on his blog, including first names and jail identification numbers.
A short but interesting article published by The Advertiser entitled "Should social media be part of the workplace?" is a common sense review of the pitfalls of social networking in the workplace. Aileen Bennett writes,"With privacy settings dubious at best and other people being able to take our information and copy and share, we must presume that everything we put on line is public. If you are writing something that you don't want your boss to see, my advice would be not to write it. if you are sharing someting that you wouldn't tell your mother, don't share. If you are updating your status with information that you wouldn't share with 500 strangers, think again."
Last week, USA Today ran a front page article entitled "Latest police weapon: iWitness". According to the article, iPhones store a great deal of information, including screen shots after mapping applications are closed, the user's browser history and GEO tags and identifying information with photos posted online. Law enforcement is being taught how to retrieve iPhone data in criminal investigations. It is only a matter of time before iPhones will be forensically examined in civil cases and internal investigations involving employee issues.
Practice pointer. Social media policies should be in place at corporations and other places of business. This will give some guidance to both employers and employees as to what can and should be done while using social media.
Update on June 2 post
On June 2, I posted an entry addressing the termination of a white football coach at an historically black university and the coach's filing of a lawsuit alleging discrimination. The Atlanta Journal Constitution now reports that 4 white students have filed suit against Savannah State University alleging that their football scholarships were pulled because they are white. It will be interesting to see how these lawsuits progress.
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