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Social Media Policy First Amendment Social Media

Social Media Policies are organizational personnel policies that outline, often in employee handbooks, acceptable standards for online behavior, as well as ownership and maintenance of organizational social media... more +
Social Media Policies are organizational personnel policies that outline, often in employee handbooks, acceptable standards for online behavior, as well as ownership and maintenance of organizational social media accounts and profiles. The development and enforcement of Social Media Policies can be a controversial issue. For example, some Social Media Policies have been subjected to scrutiny by the National Labor Relations Board for being reasonably interpreted as discouraging "protected concerted activity."  less -
Oppenheimer Investigations Group

Digital Danger: When Social Media Posts Can Trigger Workplace Investigations

Employers bear the responsibility of preventing and correcting harassment in the workplace. While the line between on and off duty conduct has never been crystal clear, in today’s hyper-connected world of social media, the...more

Cranfill Sumner LLP

Defamation and Reputation Management in the Digital Age

Cranfill Sumner LLP on

Defamation is the act of communicating false statements about a person that injures their reputation. Legal protections for a person’s reputation go back to common law and were well developed over the past two centuries....more

Napoli Shkolnik

Controls on Social Media Use are Taking Hold—at School

Napoli Shkolnik on

As the inherent risks of social media use become more broadly understood, pressure is building on government bodies at every level to enact effective regulations. There has been some action at the federal level: both the...more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

Supreme Court Addresses Social Media Usage by a Public Official

Lindke v. Freed, 2024 U.S. LEXIS 1214 (2024) (A public official who blocks someone from commenting on the official’s social-media page engages in state action under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 only if the official both 1) possessed...more

Franczek P.C.

How to Identify State Action in the Context of Public Officials Using Social Media

Franczek P.C. on

Social media has given public officials the ability to share information quickly and easily with their constituents and followers, even on their own personal Facebook and other social media accounts. When using a personal...more

Gray Reed

Falling Off the Fence: Can You Fire Those with Different Viewpoints?

Gray Reed on

Ernest “Big Daddy” Bux’s daughter Kathy “Kitten” was working for Approval Literary Agency in Blessing, Texas – that is until last month. Kitten, an associate literary agent with Approval Literary was sacked after her boss...more

Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP

Absolute Freedom to Tweet? Employers (and the NLRA) May Have Something to Say About It

Do you need a social media policy or are the legal obstacles just too much? Now more than ever, people are exercising their First Amendment right to free speech, which, not surprisingly, can cause heartburn at the workplace....more

Fisher Phillips

A Dealership’s Guide To Social Media, Free Speech, And The Election

Fisher Phillips on

You just learned that one of your employees expressed their opinion about the election on social media. Their unfiltered post includes slurs, and it is inflammatory at best. Had they made these same comments while at work,...more

Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP

Politics in the workplace: A volatile combination!

On the eve of Election Day, what can employers do to keep their workplaces from exploding? What workplace speech is protected by the First Amendment or the National Labor Relations Act? When do political social media posts...more

Constangy, Brooks, Smith & Prophete, LLP

Social Media + Employees = Hot Mess

Can you discipline or fire an employee because of his or her social media posts? Do employees have a constitutional right to say whatever they want online or at a protest? What blowback might companies face due to negative...more

K&L Gates LLP

Digital Crisis PR: Removal of Unlawful Content from Digital Platforms

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Whether you are an individual, a start-up, or a multi-million dollar corporation, there is an art to removal-or “takedowns”- of unlawful content or negative reviews that have been posted about you or your business online. In...more

Seyfarth Shaw LLP

Maryland State Government Employee’s Job Duties Reinstated after Demotion Following Facebook Post

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Seyfarth Synopsis: Employees’ use of their personal social media accounts in ways that could impact an employer’s business present challenges to employers....more

Kilpatrick

Social Media Engagement - Top 10 Legal Issues and Risk Mitigation Strategies

Kilpatrick on

While individuals can interact with celebrities, brands, and anyone else on social media with impunity and little legal risk, companies may not. Companies and the brands they manage occupy a different space because companies...more

FordHarrison

Can’t Block This!—Best Practices for Your Company’s Social Media Policy

FordHarrison on

Federal Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald ruled that President Trump could not block certain Twitter users from viewing his tweets, and that doing so was in violation of the U.S. Constitution. ...more

Zuckerman Spaeder LLP

Can You Fire Someone For Racist Tweets?

Zuckerman Spaeder LLP on

On May 29, Roseanne Barr posted a tweet comparing former Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett to an ape. ABC’s reaction was swift and decisive: it fired Barr and cancelled her show. ABC’s decision led to pontification from...more

Womble Bond Dickinson

There’s no debate: freedom of speech presents challenging legal issues for workers and employers in the age of social media

Womble Bond Dickinson on

John Pueschel, partner in the Winston-Salem office of Womble Bond Dickinson, examines the limits on employee free speech and use of social media against the background of recent events at Google and in Charlottesville....more

Tucker Arensberg, P.C.

Federal Court Holds That Banning a Commenter From a Public Official’s Public Facebook Page Violates the Commenter’s Right to Free...

Tucker Arensberg, P.C. on

Davison v. Loudoun County Bd. of Supervisors, 1:16CV932 (JCC/IDD), 2017 WL 3158389 (E.D. Va. July 25, 2017). The District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia issued a declaratory judgment holding that an elected...more

Franczek P.C.

Use Caution when Monitoring Comments on Your School’s Social Media Page

Franczek P.C. on

Public schools should be cautious as to how they moderate access to and comments on their social media profiles. In Packingham v. North Carolina, the Supreme Court recently recognized that the Internet, and particularly...more

Fisher Phillips

Digital Disruptions: Handling Social Media Misuse By Students And Educators

Fisher Phillips on

Beginning with the launch of Myspace and Facebook in the early part of the last decade, social media communication has taken the world by storm. Today, social media networking is the primary means of communicating about one’s...more

Morrison & Foerster LLP - Social Media

Status Updates: Appeals court upholds anti-cyberbullying law; better marketing through neural networks; restaurant owner turns the...

Cruel intentions. Laws seeking to regulate speech on the Internet must be narrowly drafted to avoid running afoul of the First Amendment, and limiting such a law’s applicability to intentional attempts to cause damage usually...more

Morrison & Foerster LLP - Social Media

Uncovering a Line in the Sand: Employee Social Media Use and the NLRA

If an employee calls his supervisor a “nasty motherf[**]ker” on Facebook, would the employee lose the protection that he would otherwise enjoy under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA)? Probably not, according to...more

Cozen O'Connor

What's Not To Like About Protected Speech?

Cozen O'Connor on

At the expense of sounding too corny, sometimes these issues are fascinating. As much as they are practical, from a takeaway standpoint. Back on May 8, 2012, I blogged about an interesting federal case in Virginia that...more

Littler

What's in a "Like"? Precedent-Setting Case Poses New Risk for Employers

Littler on

The ubiquitous thumbs-up icon in Facebook has gained new prominence for private employers. In a case of first impression, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit held that an employee fired for "liking" the campaign...more

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