Its been a few weeks since I’ve written a Friday Mail and my attempts to find a suitable ghost writer have been continually scuppered by a deluge of work and a surfeit of bodies. This is not to say that digital development has stopped (it never does), nor that my ongoing research has fallen by the wayside. There just hasn’t been enough time to write up on the things that have caught my eye.
The commencement of the extradition hearing for Julian Assange (the founder of Wikileaks) and the recent exploits of Wael Ghonim (a Google employee who is credited with acting as the rallying voice for Egypt’s youth in their campaign to oust Mubarak) have once again raised the debate as to whether giving individuals a platform to make their voice heard on a global scale is a good thing.
On the one hand, we have the pro-freedom of speech campaigners: everyone has a right to be heard, the truth is not something we should fear, you get the gist. But try telling that to those people in Egypt who have died as a result of the riots, or those individuals who have worked for respective Secret Services, carrying out a risky job they believed to be essential to the safety and security of their country, whose lives (and the lives of their families) are now at greater risk because of the actions/determination of one individual who is playing god with highly sensitive material. Will Assange or Wael accept responsibility for the negative aspect of their actions? I doubt it.
To assume that the argument is straightforward is naive at best. Not only do we have to factor in differing legal, economic and political frameworks, we also have to factor in differences in culture. And that is where things get REALLY tricky. For those people who try to tell me that Democracy is the right way to govern, or that equality is the natural order of things, I point out that applying a catch all scenario to such differences is simply making the same mistake as early settlers did with indigent species: give us your land or die. Or worse, early Crusaders did with Christianity: believe in my doctrine or die. Seriously, who has the right to determine what is and is not culturally acceptable?
Please note, I’m not advocating that equality is a bad thing or that we should all adopt something like Communism as a way of life – far from it. Simply that underlying factors that need to be discussed are much more complex than are often made out to be in the press.
What has this got to do with the world of HR and RecAd, I hear you ask? With so many clients wanting to get involved in Social Media, we need to be quite clear that the involvement required is much more than setting up a Facebook Group, or using Foursquare in a campaign. There are certain aspects of social media that are not yet defined, which need to be considered. Such as legal obligations on behalf of an employee or the company they work for when posting comments, or the notion of Intellectual Property ownership when thoughts or ideas are generated during working hours.
You might assume that common sense applies – post negative comments and expect to get fired; post something that places the company into disrepute and you can expect to be taken to court. But, what if the comments are posted on a server outside of the jurisdiction in which you work (for example, posting comments on a server that is based in Tehran), or if someone else posts a picture of you without letting you know? Or what if the pictures simply imply a lifestyle that is not in keeping with the organisation that you are working for, rather than portraying something that is illegal or immoral. Can, and more importantly, should an individual really be held responsible for this?
Our advice to this point has been that a company should set up some guidelines as to what is and is not acceptable in their eyes. Whilst these may not be legally binding, having some form of framework has to be better than nothing. But in a recent test case, the legal limit on employers’ Internet policies was due to be challenged. An employee of the Conneticut ambulance service was fired for positive negative Facebook comments about her boss. Her response? She took her employees to court stating that the posting policy was “overly broad” and “contained unlawful provisions”. Specifically, the claim stated that the policy was in violation of the National Labor Relations Act, which gives employees the right to discuss “the terms and conditions of their employment with others.”
As with many such attempts to develop clear-cut legal definitions, the process proved to be far too costly, and the Conneticut Ambulance Service decided to settle out of court. (I’m certain there will be a binding clause somewhere in the settlement…) So who was right and does this get us anywhere nearer to coming up with something definitive that we can advise our clients on? Unfortunately no. As is the way with these things, it is easier to brush the problem under the carpet, than to front up the real issue. Because to come up with a clear, legally defined answer will take too long and cost too much. And in reality will pose many more problems that we know we can’t answer.
This is where self-regulation comes in. There has been a lot of studies to show that, whilst opinions in online communities are often portrayed by the views of the extreme thinkers (either heavily pro or heavily against), the views of the mainstream are often much more moderate. They (community members) tend to accept the rants and ravings, but will happily step in when they feel that things have gone too far. And in many cases, this approach seems to work.
But (and its a big but) this requires a leap of faith on behalf of those clients that are looking to participate in social media. The question for me is not whether you trust people to represent your brand in an appropriate manner, but whether your brand values (and particularly your brand values as an employer) are pervasive within the organisation within which you work. If they are, then you have nothing to fear from the truth. If not, then you might want to talk to our Solutions Consultants…