ethics and business low

 

The widespread nature of social media has made it a factor in employee conduct online and after hours. Is it ethical for companies to fire or otherwise punish employees for what they post about? Are social media posts counted as “free speech” and therefore should be protected speech or should there be lines drawn?

A Yelp employee, for example,

wrote an article

on Medium, a popular blogging website, about what she perceived as awful working conditions at the influential online review company. The company fired her for what it perceived as disloyalty.

Assuming you were in charge of writing corporate policy on this subject, what would your off-hours social media policy look like?