As a younger attorney who grew up alongside social media’s rise, Trevor Torcello has heard a lot of the same questions.
“Although it’s gotten better as time has gone on, (clients usually ask) about the capabilities of the technology and what the different (social) platforms do,” said the partner at Gross Shuman PC in Buffalo.
“And then it trickles down to 'how are my employees going to use it? How’s it going to be abused and what should I be doing to protect myself?' ”
Torcello’s main practice areas include business litigation, corporate law plus real estate and development. But his work with clients in those realms has continuously spilled over to counsel on the use of technology and social media in the workplace.
For some clients, he has drafted a social media policy.
“That’s a best practice, especially if you are using it as a company to have that policy in place so there are expectations,” he said. “The employee (then) knows the expectations (and) the employer understands what the employee can and can’t do.”
At the forefront of policies typically are disclaimers to curb discrimination and harassment that could happen via social media or even through text messaging, he said.
“People feel like they can use these 140 characters to express complex thoughts or sometimes inappropriate thoughts and do it without any consequence,” Torcello said. “(It’s important) everybody understands that’s not the case (and isn’t permitted).”
Attorney Allison Prout agreed that policies which outline what is or is not appropriate in the workplace give employees a firm set of rules and makes them aware of what’s tolerated and what could face disciplinary action.
She recently joined Beckage PLLC after being in-house corporate counsel at a Rochester cloud management startup.
A practice she instituted there and plans to carry over to her work with Beckage clients is to show examples to employees of what they can and cannot do on social media.
It’s a good way to let them know boundaries, she said.
“I think examples are really important. That’s something that can be really beneficial,” she said.
Additionally, firm founder Jennifer Beckage said employees must be aware of confidentially obligations.
Selfies and other photographs taken in someone’s personal workspace may seem harmless but could be a network security risk if passwords or other confidential information are written on a note that’s visible in the background of an image.
“It could be a potential risk for the organization,” she said.
Prout said another element many fail to think about is what a company’s employees should post via social media when a security breach occurs, if anything at all.
For some businesses, it could be helpful for some employees to alert those affected.
“You have to look at it on a case-by-case basis,” she said. “We want to put the organization in the best position possible to minimize legal risk.”