2012 was a momentous year for social media law. We’ve combed through the court decisions, the legislative initiatives, the regulatory actions and the corporate trends to identify what we believe to be the ten most significant social media law developments of the past year–here they are, in no particular order: Bland v. Roberts – A… Continue Reading
Category Archives: Employment Law
Subscribe to Employment Law RSS FeedNew Issue of the Socially Aware Newsletter Now Available
Posted in Employment Law, FCC, FTC, IP, Litigation, Privacy, Section 230 Safe Harbor, Statistics, Terms of Use, TrademarkIn the latest issue of Socially Aware, our Burton Award-winning guide to the law and business of social media, we look at recent First Amendment, intellectual property, labor and privacy law developments affecting corporate users of social media and the Internet. We also recap major events from 2012 that have had a substantial impact on… Continue Reading
Social Media and the National Labor Relations Act: What Employers Need to Know in Drafting and Updating Their Social Media Policies
Posted in Employment LawThis article was first published by ALM Media Properties LLC in Internet Law & Strategy (January 2013). For over a year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has been taking employers to task for intruding too far into employees’ social media activities. The NLRB’s enforcement actions have provided a well-publicized reminder that the protections of… Continue Reading
New California Law Limits Employer Access to Employee Social Media Accounts
Posted in Employment Law, PrivacyOn September 27, 2012, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill that restricts employer access to the “personal social media” of employees and applicants for employment. Assembly Bill 1844 (“AB 1844”) adds to the California Labor Code new section 980. Under this section, an employer may not “require or request” an employee or applicant to… Continue Reading
Update: What’s Not to Like?
Posted in Employment Law, Litigation, PrivacyAs we reported earlier this year, the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held in Bland v. Roberts that merely “liking” a Facebook page is insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection. In the case, former employees of the Hampton Sheriff’s Office brought a lawsuit against Sheriff B.J. Roberts, in his individual and official… Continue Reading
The NLRB Weighs In (Again) On Social Media Policies
Posted in Employment LawWith the issuance of its third guidance document on workplace social media policies in the past year, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) continues to refine its position on how to craft workplace social media policies that are consistent with the terms of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). Section 7 of the NLRA provides… Continue Reading
Interview with Debbie Rosenbaum regarding Bland v. Roberts
Posted in Employment Law, Litigation, PrivacyAs a result of her recent Socially Aware blog post What’s Not to Like, our contributor Debbie Rosenbaum has been interviewed by LXBN TV regarding Bland v. Roberts, the recent (and controversial) federal court decision holding that “liking” a Facebook page does not constitute protected speech under the First Amendment. Click below to watch the… Continue Reading
Maryland Enacts First Law Prohibiting Employers From Requesting Passwords to Employees’ Online Personal Accounts
Posted in Employment Law, PrivacyIn our recent Socially Aware blog post, we noted that a number of pending state bills are seeking to ban employers from requesting confidential login information, including social media login information, as a condition of employment. In fact, on April 9, 2012, Maryland passed Senate Bill 433/HB 964, prohibiting employers from requesting current and prospective… Continue Reading
What’s Not to Like?
Posted in Employment Law, Litigation, PrivacyA recent district court decision highlights the growing prevalence of issues relating to new media technologies arising in the courtroom. In Bland v. Roberts, the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that merely “liking” a Facebook page is insufficient speech to merit constitutional protection. Five former employees of the Hampton Sheriff’s… Continue Reading
What’s Your Facebook Password?
Posted in Employment Law, FCC, Federal Communications Commission Reform Act, PrivacyAccording to press reports, a growing number of employers require job applicants to disclose their login information for Facebook or other social media accounts as a condition of employment. While this practice may very well fall on the wrong side of the law, lawyers and lawmakers are still in the process of establishing the framework… Continue Reading
District Court Considers Value of Twitter Account
Posted in Employment Law, IP, Terms of Use“Man, what do I write here? And what’s it going to be valued at?” So read Noah Kravitz’s Twitter profile soon after Magistrate Judge Maria-Elena James of the Northern District of California denied Kravitz’s motion to dismiss a number of claims brought against him by his former employer related to the Twitter account. While Kravitz… Continue Reading
Editor’s Predictions for 2012
Posted in Employment Law, IP, Privacy, Terms of UseTo ring in the New Year, the Socially Aware editors provide their predictions regarding social media law and business developments in the coming year (please keep in mind that, if we were good at this prediction thing, we wouldn’t be practicing law for a living) . . . Watch for an explosion of employment law… Continue Reading
Can “Friending” Employees Lead to Legal Headaches?
Posted in Employment LawOnline social networking, and its capacity to connect our professional lives to our personal lives, have introduced a variety of new legal issues in the workplace – issues that we explore regularly in Socially Aware. Many managers and supervisors have connected with subordinates on social networking sites, and have likely wondered about the practical and… Continue Reading
Employee Non-Compete and Non-Solicitation Agreements in the Social Networking Era
Posted in Employment LawEmployers have long used non-compete and non-solicitation agreements to prevent former employees from taking unfair advantage of confidential information, including client information, to which they received access during their employment. The growth of social media, however, is raising complex new issues for employers seeking to protect such company confidences from misuse by ex-employees. For example,… Continue Reading
NLRB Report Provides Guidance to Employers on Social Media Issues
Posted in Employment LawOn August 18, 2011, the National Labor Relations Board’s (“NLRB”) Office of the General Counsel released a report discussing the outcome of fourteen cases that its Division of Advice has investigated this year involving social media use in the employment context. While the report does not reflect actual decisions of the NLRB, it does indicate the… Continue Reading
NLRB Gets Worked Up Over Social Media Policies
Posted in Employment LawThe National Labor Relations Board (“NLRB”) remains vigilant regarding the interaction between social media and the workplace, and has continued to focus on the impact of restrictive social media policies on employee rights under the National Labor Relations Act (“NLRA”). In an effort to issue uniform guidance on this emerging issue, all NLRB regional offices… Continue Reading