In the days before the war in Iraq, American journalists liked to emphasize how little freedom they had to report the real news. There were frequent references to their "handlers" who monitored what they could and could not say.
These days a couple of bloggers may be wondering what happened to American freedom of speech. The New York Daily News ran a story about two people who were fired after their employers discovered their blogs.
"Blogger rights are fast becoming an issue in the workplace as 8 million Americans have created their own blogs, more than 25% of all Internet users visit blogs and 12% have posted comments on blogs.
It's wise for workers to be cautious, said Annalee Newitz, a policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a sort of civil-liberties group for techno-geeks. "
While blogging can seem like a private diary between the blogger and a few close friends and family, it's important to remember that it is a form of publishing that anyone can stumble upon.
"You wouldn't say nasty things about your boss to his face, and it's probably not appropriate to do it on your blog either," Newitz said.
One of the bloggers worked for Google and evidently speculated about the company's finances. Google was obviously not amused. Evidently Yahoo isn't quite as blogging averse
The other blogger was a Delta flight attendent who evidently posed in her uniform in a way the company did not find appropriate for employee.
Does that mean employees need to stop blogging about their jobs? Not necessarily.
As Analee Newitz told the New York Daily News, if you are going to blog about the company you work for it's probably a good idea to keep everything anonymous.
Sounds like FunnyBusiness to me.
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