Legal and Ethical Implications of Corporate Social Networks

Abstract

Corporate social networking sites provide employees and employers with considerable opportunity to share information and become friends. Unfortunately, American and international laws do not directly address social networking site usage. The National Labor Relations Act, civil rights laws, and various common law doctrines such as employment at-will and defamation provide the pattern for future social networking laws. Ethical considerations such as productivity, security, goodwill, privacy, accuracy, and discipline fairness also affect future laws. Corporate policies on corporate social networking should balance the employer’s and employee’s interests. Existing laws and ethical issues associated with social networking should impact social networking policies related to configuration, communication, discipline, and evaluation of policies. Corporate social networking policies should be business-related, ensure user notification of monitoring, maintain adequate records, and provide for reliable, consistent, and impersonal evaluation of monitoring effectiveness.

Keywords: social networking, social media, law, ethics, organizational policy

JEL Classification: K10, K19, K30, K31, K39, M10, M12, M19, M51, M59