The Republic of T. Archives

Via Boing Boing.

This list of people who got fired for blogging, and companies that have fired employees for bloging it pretty interesting. The first story I saw about someone getting fired for blogging was Michael’s post about his termination after his employer read a particular post on his blog. Michael has also posted about other people getting fired for blogging. Of course, there was also, Jessica Cutler (a/k/a Washingtonienne), who’s blogging about her sexual exploits with politically powerful, married men got her fired from her Capitol Hill job. And let’s not forget one of the latest, Queen of Sky, the flight attendant who got fired for blogging. Most recently (another one from Boing Boing that apparently came up while I was writing this) a major British bookstore chain fired an employee of 11 years for remarks made about his workplace on his blog.

The blog post in which this list appears also features the following declaration:

International Bloggers’ Bill of Rights

We, the inhabitants of the Blogosphere, do hereby proclaim that bloggers everywhere are entitled to the following basic rights:

FREEDOM TO BLOG.

FREEDOM FROM PERSECUTION AND RETALIATION BECAUSE OF OUR BLOGS:

1.) If an employer wishes to discipline an employee because of his/her blog, it must first establish clear-cut blogging policies and distribute these to all of its employees.
2.) Blogging employees shall be given warning before being disciplined because of their blogs.
3.) NO ONE shall be fired because of his/her blog, unless the employer can prove that the blogger did intentional damage to said employer through the blog.

Blogophobic companies, who violate the Bloggers’ Bill of Rights, will be blacklisted by millions of bloggers the world over.

And so an interesting new term enters our lexicon: blogophoic.

I never got fired for blogging, myself, though I did get a stern talking-to about it at my previous job. And I actually fall into what is, as far as a I can tell, the much rarer category of people whose blogging helps get them jobs.

It’s all got me wondering about something. More people are blogging and more people are reading blogs. It’s one of those things that’s still new enough that the lines are somewhat blurred, and one has to guess what crosses them and what doesn’t. It’s also one of those things that has been around long enough now for people to start figuring this stuff out.

A while back, I wrote this:

Businesses need to realize that their employees are going to blog whether they want them to or not. Just like employees are going to send personal emails and make personal phone calls from time to time on the job. Companies should come up with policies on blogging, make them known company-wide, and spell them out for every new employee. In fact, giving employees blogs through the company might be a good idea, and might generate some inexpensive PR.

But what should a corporate policy on blogging look like? That’s something I never quite got back to wrapping my brain around but seeing this list of people who were fired for blogging got me thinking about it again.

Well, it depends a lot on the employer. Some employers might opt for a “no blogging at all, business or personal, etc.” It would be laughable at best, because it would have the same effect as “no personal phonecalls” and “no personal emails.” Everyone knows these things are going to happen in the workplace. It’s inevitable. It’s a matter of degrees, and shouldn’t be an issue unless it reaches a point at which it impedes performance. The same should apply to blogging, in some fasion. If an employee spends all day on his/her blog, and neglects his/her work, then it’s obviously a problem. If an employee blogs and manages to do his/her job, then all that might be necessary is to warn against “excessive” blogging, as is often done with personal emails and phone calls.

A “no blogging” policy all but ensures that down the line an employee will blog and will—if the policy is to have any meaning at all—will have to be fired. And it’s just possible that the circumstances will not necessarily show the employer in the best light, though they may be entirely justified. As I said earlier, more people are blogging and more people are reading blogs. An employee fired for blogging will more than likely blog about his/her termination, and that story will make its way around the internet from blog to blog, until employer establishes a reputation and winds up on a list of “blogophobic” companies. As blogging becomes more common and more popular, such a list might not be the most desireable place for a company’s name to appear.

Then there’s the matter of content. It probably doesn’t need to be said that employees should be very selective when it comes to blogging about things related to their employers, if they blog about such things at all. That it probably doesn’t need to be said means that it actually must be said, because if it isn’t the day will come when an employee called on the carpet because of something on his/her blog points out that it wasn’t said. And though we live in the era of at-will-employment, it’s can still get messier than anyone wants to have to deal with. Spell it out, and invite your employees to come to you with questions if they’re not sure. Of course they can only do this if you have a blogging policy and you’re open about it.

It’s easy to think that what you write on your blog is fairly anonymous. But the truth is, unless you blog anonymously, then it isn’t. Blog about your employer, or people that you work with, and I promise you the hairdresser of the sister of the best friend of the woman who’s in the bookgroup of your boss’s wife’s next door neighbor will read it, and it will find it’s way back to the original subject. It’s best to assume that there are no degrees of separation if you put your name and your face on your blog. And even if you blog under a pseudonym, enough identifiable details can still land you in an uncomfortable meeting that involves a lot of squirming on your part. If you should come out of it with you’re job intact, don’t breath a sigh of relief because you are still being watched and peoplewill be waiting for the other shoe to drop. And you’ll have to be careful not to slip-up drop it.

From an employee’s point of view, no matter what the case, these days it’s better to be circumspect about what one blogs, and to assume that whatever you blog about will eventually be read by someone you know, or someone who knows you.

For employers, assume that your employees are going to blog, and establish clear guidelines to guide them should they choose to do so. Make the penalties for not abiding by the policy clear, such as under what circumstances an employee will be warned and under what circumstances an employee will be terminated where blogging is concerned. And, of course, one of the best things to do is to set an example by starting a company blog if appropriate.

All of the above would seem to be common sense. But the reality is that much of what we consider common sense today wasn’t always such. It had to be invented as circumstances and developments required, and then spread around to the point of becoming common. Consider this my humble contribution to furthering that process.

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 9th, 2005 at 11:32 pm and is filed under Current Events, Life, Weblogs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.