Tag: Facebook

Doctors and Judges: Who Can They Friend On Facebook?

Some doctors use social media to discuss health topics, while other doctors use their Facebook or twitters as a tool to become more available to their patients.  Doctors who accept friend requests from patients may face concerns such as protecting patient privacy and maintaining appropriate boundaries between professional and social relationships.  At first glance, one may believe that there is no harm in doctors and patients being Facebook friends, however, as the article notes, this could violate HIPPA laws.

Judges face similar challenges when they choose to accept friend requests from prosecutors or defense lawyers who appear before them. In Florida, the court may soon clarify the parameters that judges and lawyers must abide by in regards to social media interaction. A Broward criminal case could set the stage for state law that will dictate who a judge can “friend” on Facebook.   This case arose after a defense attorney filed a motion to disqualify a judge because he was friends on Facebook with the assistant state attorney.

Would you feel comfortable friend requesting your doctor?

 

Did Netflix Violate SEC Regulations on Facebook?

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings was very excited when his company reached a milestone, achieving one billion hours of content on their streaming service. Hastings was so excited, that he posted the information on his personal Facebook page. However, the SEC requires that disclosures about company information must be distributed “through a press release on a widely disseminated news or wire service, or by ‘any other non-exclusionary method’ that provides broad public access.”

With Facebook having over one billion active monthly users and considering the top newspaper only circulates approximately 62,000,000 copies monthly, has Facebook become the more appropriate venue for companies to release information?

Waitress at Applebee’s Fired for Posting Receipt on Social Media Site

A server at Applebee’s received a receipt from a customer (a Pastor, apparently) which left her no tip for a party of 20 people, and read “I give God 10%, why do you get 18?”  Another waitress, trying to make the scene into something more lighthearted,  posted a picture of the receipt on her Facebook page.  She left the signature visible. Once the identity of the diner was being guessed online, the story spread, and the waitress who posted the photo was fired.

I post this, partly to follow up on my recent post about Federal Regulations prohibiting employer’s from blanket bans on employee social media postings.  If the waitress had posted the photo without the signature line visible, would she still have her job? Would she also have had to exclude the name/address of the restaurant?

 

Employer’s Attempts to Limit Employee Speech – and the NLRB’s Response

This semester, I’m writing about how social media has changed/is changing the face of employment discrimination law suits. In that vein, here’s an article from the NYTimes about how employers have attempted to limit employee speech online – regulations which have clashed with union advocates and federal regulations.

 

Kids’ Facebook “depression”

I don’t know if I should laugh at this article as ridiculous or be shocked and paranoid for the future of America.  The article discusses the responsibility of doctors to discuss the facebook effect with their patients.  Has social media infiltrated society so much that a discussion regarding its influence will now be included along with an eye exam and height measurement?  What does this say about us?

 

 

7th Circuit Strikes Down Sex Offender Ban on Social Media

The  7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled yesterday that an Indiana Law prohibiting a convicted sex offenders from using social media, violates the First Amendment Right to Free Speech. The ACLU brought the suit on behalf of John Doe, an anonymous registered sex offender who had been convicted of child exploitation.  Doe challenged Indiana Code Sec 35-42-4-12, which disallows registered sex offenders from using websites, chat rooms and instant messaging services if such entities are known to be accessible to minors.  In rendering the decision, Judge Joel Flaum, writing for the three member panel, found that the statute “broadly prohibits substantial protracted speech rather than specifically targeting the evil of improper commu I action to minors”.  What do you think?  Did the court get it right?

 

 

 

 

What do we mean when we say social media?

The Dayton Business Journal recently published the list of the top ten most visited social media websites. The list was compiled based on total number of visits.  No big surprise with Facebook, YouTube and Twitter in the top three spots.  Interesting to me was that Pintrest ranked fourth and that two relatively new sites, MeetMe and Tagged, scored pretty high up there, bumping Yelp at the same time.  Nothing much legal about a list of sites, but I think it interesting to have a sense of just what we are speaking of when we say “social media.”

“Social Media” Speech Protected at work

After we all agreed that we use social media as a way to vent about the life of a law student it makes sense that most people like to do the same thing by venting on fbook. It is good that people can have a sense of group therapy without having to fear they might lose their job. Apparently, the NLRB feels the same way!  An NY Times article concerning the NLRB’s series of decisions can be found here.

 

Judge Probably Wants to Call an Audible

Johnny Manziel, also known as “Johnny Football” won the Heisman trophy in his freshman year, the quickest ever to do so. He also  is pretty quick on the road. He received a speeding ticket after the season ended. What makes this story interesting is that we found out about the speeding ticket because Judge W. Lee posted the news on his Facebook account.