In a very interesting (and perhaps landmark case), Fair Work Australia recently overturned an employee’s dismissal because the organisation didn’t have a social media policy.
The story (source):
The truck driver of 22 years’ unblemished service was sacked in May 2011, after one of his managers accessed the driver’s Facebook profile to find a range of offensive comments directed towards her and the company’s Transport Manager.
The manager gave evidence that she clicked on the driver’s profile while after seeing his name on a mutual Facebook friend’s page and read comments which directly referenced her by name, which she found “revolting and frightening”.
She informed the Transport Manager, who is a Muslim and was also singled out on the driver’s Facebook page as a “bacon hater”, and together they informed the Manager of Workplace Relations about the comments.
An investigation was conducted and the driver’s employment was terminated on the basis that the comments amounted to discrimination of a sexual and racial nature.
The truck driver said his wife and daughter, who set up his Facebook page on his behalf, had told him the profile had full privacy settings and wasn’t intended to be read by anyone who wasn’t a Facebook friend.
He also argued the only sexually discriminatory comments written on the page were posted by a friend, and his comments about the Transport Manager were not intended to be racially derogatory.
For some time now, we’ve offered a document for free to anyone who we meet that details the basics of what we think should be considered as part of building social media policy and/or strategy for a small organisation.
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10 things you have to know before using Facebook Timeline: A visual guide
March 3rd, 2012
Hugh Stephens
As we reported late last week, Facebook Timeline has been released into open beta for Facebook Pages. You can see a preview and set up your page before publishing it, or wait until March 31 when all Pages will be moved across.
Here’s the top 10 things that are important to think about.
In a move that wasn’t expected (at least from us) until the middle of the year, Facebook has just opened up the public beta (i.e. opt-in) for the new TImeline view for Pages. You’ll be forced over to the new style on March 31.
If you don’t know what that is, this is what the old Page style is:
Our friend Prakky's Page!
And will now look something like this:
Starbucks' New Facebook Timeline Page
