<p>Came across this article this morning and decided that the subject would be interesting to CCers and their kids:</p>
<p>[Federal</a> Court applies Stored Communications Act protection to employee social media pages](<a href=“Federal Court applies Stored Communications Act protection to employee social media pages - Lexology ”>Federal Court applies Stored Communications Act protection to employee social media pages - Lexology )</p>
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On August 20, 2013, a Federal District Court in New Jersey issued an opinion applying the Federal Stored Communications Act (SCA), 18 U.S.C. §2701 11, to non-public Facebook pages. In Ehling v. Monmouth-Ocean Hospital Service Corp., D.N.J. No. 2:11-cv-03305, a co-worker, who was friends with the plaintiff on Facebook and was able to view her posts, forwarded a number of the plaintiffs inappropriate posts regarding her work on to their employer. The employer could not directly access these posts because of the plaintiffs privacy settings on her Facebook profile. Ultimately, the employer terminated the plaintiff for making these posts that were forwarded on to the employer. The plaintiff sued, alleging that the employer violated the SCA by accessing her non-public posts.</p>
<p>The court agreed with plaintiff that because her Facebook posts were not publicly accessible, the SCA protected them from unauthorized access. However, the court held that the employer did not violate the SCA in this instance because one of the exceptions to liability under the SCA applied in this situation. The employee who forwarded the post was authorized to access it, and under the SCA, that employee was also authorized to then forward it onto whomever he pleases. So long as the employer did not in any way coerce the employee to forward the posts, the employer did not violate the SCA despite the fact that the plaintiff never directly authorized the employer to access the posts.
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<p>One moral of the story is that a Facebook (or other social media) user needs to be careful about “friending” coworkers.</p>
<p>(Moderators: my apologies if this is a duplicate thread on the subject that has already been discussed by CC. Please merge ore delete then.)</p>
<p>Or as my mother used to say, “Never put anything in writing that you wouldn’t want to see published on the front page of the paper.”</p>
sabaray
September 5, 2013, 7:01pm
3
<p>Especially relevant to new grads, BB, even ones who already know everything.
I’ve known a few adults who should have known better lose their jobs due to their postings. Also good to note what appears in your public history and what is visible to friends of friends. But I agree-- don’t put it in writing if you wouldn’t want to see it in the paper!</p>