Posted: Friday, 4 January 2019 @ 13:43
The travails of the BBC continue with news that it has sacked two workers for misusing Twitter.
BBC sacks two workers for misusing Twitter
A further two workers have been disciplined following inappropriate behaviour on sites like Twitter and Facebook, the broadcaster has disclosed under a Freedom of Information request.
The “unusual” move comes as the broadcaster imposed an informal ban on its staff for tweeting about the BBC’s “problems”.
As the Telegraph observe acting director of news Fran Unsworth sent an internal email earlier this month saying it would be helpful if “some of our problems were not played out publicly across the social media and in the pages of the national press”.
Her email was an attempt to regain control amid the Newsnight crisis, after some of the BBC’s biggest names, including the programme’s front man Jeremy Paxman, went public with their opinions on the Corporation, some highly critical.
This is all pretty dramatic stuff and previously I have posted on the rights to check Facebook pages.
If I was mediating this dispute, I would observe
1 The Courts will have to apply balance between right of expression (in this instance the Employee's right) and the Employer's rights. Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights provides a right to freedom of expression, but qualifies this with "the protection of the reputation of rights of others." Therefore the employee will not have carte blanche to criticise his or her employer on the Facebook page.
2 Employers must have policies and contract to protect themselves. In this instance the BBC is said to have a written policy on acceptable social media use.
3 Employee's conduct will be critical. In my experience to take disciplinary action on the basis of someone moaning about work is extreme.
4 Fair Investigations will be pivotal.
Justin Patten, Mediator