Dear Littler: I manage a growing family medical practice out West. It has come to our attention that one of our staff members maintains an adult-themed website. We learned about this when another staff member complained about some forwarded emails linking to the site in question. We have no issues with the employee’s job performance but are concerned about our reputation if word gets out. I’m not sure how to approach this, if at all. Are there employment-related issues I’m missing? What are our options?
—Website Wary
Dear Wary,
You are not alone! The wide expansion of social media and internet-based commerce have created numerous issues for employers. You don’t indicate whether the site in question is private or public, or whether the employee profits from this site, so we’ll cover an array of potential concerns.
The first issue is access to employees’ social media sites. Twenty-eight states have social media privacy laws that prohibit private employers from accessing an employee’s non-public social media posts. Among other things, these laws prohibit employers from requesting or requiring employees to grant access to their personal social media accounts and requesting or requiring employees to disclose the login information to their personal social media accounts. Although you indicated you obtained the information about the employee’s website from another employee, depending on the state your business is in, you would be ill-advised to access the website yourself.
The...
The Justice Department has fired back at the Southern Poverty Law Center after it filed an injunction against Acting Attorney General Todd Blanche for saying the group didn’t share information from...