Tweeting guidelines to avoid casting a negative impression on your company - and yourself.

1. Employer Hot Topics
Employment tips in “Plain English”
by Laurel McDowell
Manpower Steubenville-
Wheeling for the Jefferson
County Chamber of
Commerce Marketing,
Communications Division
Twitter and Legal Risk
Twitter is a huge electronic social network where you can post a short message telling what
you’re doing, thinking, or something cool about your company. Messages are referred to as
“tweets”, or short, bite-sized comments. Twitter can be accessed from a computer, a cell
phone, BlackBerry, etc.
How is Twitter applied in the employment world? Company profiles on Twitter are used so
potential customers can get to know you, like you, and trust you. Companies also use Twitter
to entice their readers to click on links for more information.
You must be careful what you “tweet”. Twitter is subject to huge potential liability. Tweets may
be damaging, defaming, or unintentionally revealing of company secrets, or even leak
privileged and/or private company information.
What you tweet creates a permanent record on the Internet. Instant messages are impulsive.
Your employees could say something on Twitter when they are angry or frustrated, that could
put you and your company in hot water.
If you are tweeting from your company’s Twitter site, your conversations are legally binding and
subject to the legal rules of electronic discovery. This means tweets could be subpoenaed.
Twitter also raises privacy and defamation issues. A disgruntled employee may tweet what he
thinks of his employer (as in “my boss is a jerk).
Your employees may claim that they were retaliated against or fired because of protected
information they shared on Twitter, such as harassment they faced in the workplace or a safety
violation.
With little case law to guide people one way or another, employers and employees should think
twice before they post something. Tweeting should be treated as printing a story on the front
page of a newspaper for everyone to see. If users tweet carelessly, without regard for potential
legal issues, then they can expect possible action taken against them by an employer,
prospective employer, employee, friend, or another company.
For more info on legal risk and Twitter, go to www.manpowerblogs.com/toth and type Twitter in
the search box. Or, contact me at laurel.mcdowell@na.manpower.com, phone
740-282-2011.