Most corporate social media policies, like this one from Apple Inc., focus more on what employees can’t post online than what they can. But aside from boss-bashing and gossip, which are usually grounds for rightful termination, employees have a few legally defensible reasons to blog about work. If you have one of the following types of bloggers on staff, fire carefully.
THE POLITIKER
By day, Mike Adams is a professor for the University of North Carolina Wilmington. By night, Adams regularly bashes the school and even the president of the faculty senate as a conservative blogger for Townhall.com. There are two things stopping the university from firing Adams: tenure, of course, and the fact that his blog is political in nature.
In many states it is illegal to fire an employee for expressing political views, according to Lisa Geurin, editor for Nolo.com and a former employment law lawyer. Check state law before handing this type of blogger a pink slip.
