If you've been using Twitter to bitch about how your boss's Yankees cologne smells like a jockstrap dunked in potpourri, here's some good news: the government says your tweets and Facebook posts are protected speech, and they're starting to crack down on unfair company policies pertaining to social media.
A lot of companies like to ensure their employees aren't badmouthing them online, and draw up policies that make Tweeting with a co-worker about your salary cut a fireable offense. But, guess what, miserable employed masses! Federal regulators say they can't do that, so let those angry internet rants fly!
Well, sort of. The National Labor Relations Board, which has been overseeing all the social media regulations, says an employer can fire you for engaging in a lone rant, so if you wanted to use the World Wide Web to call the President something racist, you might still get into trouble.
But the labor board says it's illegal for employers to employ "overly broad" policies stifling online conversations between employees calling for improved their wages, benefits and quality of life at the workplace. "Many view social media as the new water cooler," the labor board's chairman, Mark G. Pearce, told the Times. "All we’re doing is applying traditional rules to a new technology."
And there's more good news for the Snapchat and Instagram addicted: another labor group, the National Workrights Institute, has argued that you shouldn't be fired for posting something that's "legal, off-duty and not job-related," so there's no need to live in fear that those photos of you getting down and dirty at Union Pool's "serene beauty pond" will one day resurface in the Webverse.
