Big Brother a problem for bloggers

It’s not news to anybody out there with an online persona and a snappy blog title that they may be being read by their employers. But now large companies and government departments in Australia are actually hiring professional to find excuses to fire you.

Sydney-based company SR7 specializes in "online risk and reputation management" and claims to be the only company in Australia that actively monitors sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Blogger and YouTube.

The company uses both automated tools and human analysis when searching out unfavorable comments or postings. Once SR7 has met with the client and discussed potential risks, an automated system searches social networking sites and blogs for certain keywords. Results are then analyzed by staff members, who can provide reports to the client on a weekly or daily basis.
Sites like Facebook are scoured by human analysts due to the more nuanced nature of the conversations that take place there. Staff members can have their profiles and groups searched for postings that may, in their employer’s opinion, reflect badly on them.

But all slandering of your workplace aside, where does this leave bloggers whose political or other views are not in line with those of their company, or even just their boss? Should someone’s opinions on an unrelated topic influence their employment at their company if it has nothing to do with the nature of their work? When should the First Amendment kick in and protect people from being cyber-hunted by professional trackers?

Personally, I think that if people do as two ex-Domino’s employees did and post video of themselves purposefully stuffing cheese up their noses and then putting it into sandwiches then you maybe have getting fired coming. But, if you’re simply voicing your opinions on something unrelated to your work, then where, really, is the relevance to your employer?

On the other hand, even employees who choose to comment about their employers can be treated a little too harshly, and all too often it seems that a remark made online can be cause for unnecessary action by employers. In March this year an upset Philly Eagles fan Dan Leone expressed his anger about the Eagles letting player Brian Dawkins go, and changed his Facebook status to ‘Dan is [expletive] devastated about Dawkins signing with Denver. . .Dam Eagles R Retarted!!’ Passionate yes, incorrectly spelled perhaps, but really no big deal right? Well unfortunately Leone was an employee of the Eagles, and lost his job over his opinion.

This is a sad event for anyone, but particularly for Leone, a lifetime Eagles fan whose job was working 16 days a year as the ‘west gate chief’ on game days. And considering the reaction the rest of the city had on Dawkins’ departure, and the criticism that the team received from mainstream media outlets, it seems unfair that such a small fish like Leone was targeted for his disgruntled status update. Really, were the Eagles harmed by this one update? And was Leone’s feeling that different from a million other Eagles fans? I doubt that any of the Eagles lost any sleep over this, and were just making an example of an otherwise dedicated fan.

The battle for free speech and actions without consequences online marches on…and with professional trackers and apathetic image conscious corporates on the rampage, will we ever be able to go back to being bloggers AND employees, rather than one or the other? Because let’s face it, even those guys at Dominos need to eat (just maybe not any sandwich they made themselves).