Does your boss put limits on your blogging?
April 13th, 2007 by MarkIn a jobs that involve a lot of interaction with the public, such as teaching, having employees express political views online can be a liability. On the other hand, many employees would resent having a boss tell them what they can and cannot talk about on their own time.
Is censoring employees’ political views on their blogs reasonable?
- No. Their lives outside of the office are their lives. As long as they don’t divulge comapny secrets, it isn’t the company’s business. (40%)
- While I would never ask an employee to stop blogging, I would terminate his butt if his public views were so objectionable to me that they might hurt my business. (33%)
- Censorship would only be reasonable in extreme cases. (20%)
- Yes. Politics are too sensitive to risk having employees alienate customers. (7%)
- Absolutely. I’m the one who pays the bills. If they work for me, I can censor their blogs however I please. (0%)
Total Votes: 15
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April 13th, 2007 at 2:23 pm
I would never condone censorship of an employee’s blog. I would fire an employee if I felt that he was no longer able to represent my organization and his blog at the same time.
Blogs are not the same as diaries kept under a pillow. They’re public media. Why should anyone keep someone whose public philosophies might be a liability to their organization?
Similarly, I would never hire Don Imus to work at a company I own, because his public views might be a liability to my business.
April 13th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
PS I wasn’t able to vote, because while I would never ask an employee to stop blogging, I would terminate his butt if his public views were so objectionable to me that they might hurt my business. There isn’t really an appropriate option for me to choose in the choices you listed.
April 13th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I think it’s harder here that it would be back in the states. I can see political views affecting more customers/prospective students than they would at home. Personally, I’m a little uncomfortable blogging much about Taiwanese politics unless it’s directly related to foreigners, i.e., romanization or work visa regulations, etc…
Still, it is something that I’ll have to think about carefully before being in a situation where I have to make a decision.
April 13th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I just realized that’s a bit of a nonsequitur. The degree of my objection over someone’s public views shouldn’t have any effect on my business at all. I should have said that if someone’s public views were very objectionable to me, I’d probably fire them even if they weren’t bad for business.
While a political blogger like Michael Turton wouldn’t cause me to lose any sleep, I would fire a Taiwanese Nazi advocate in a second for his political views, whether or not they were bad for my business.
April 14th, 2007 at 8:24 am
Nazis, yikes! I hadn’t even considered the possibility of a foreign teacher blogging to promote those kinds of views.
A teacher doing “Michael Turton” blogging would probably take a hit in student numbers at my school though. If his or her blog were as big as Michael’s it would be almost inevitable. Being in the heart of the city, my students’ political views are as “blue” as the deep blue sea. In the few times when I’ve mentioned anything related to Chén Shuĭbiān (陳水扁), such as when teaching the words “president” or “leader”, I’ve been shouted down for even mentioning him… by 8 year olds. Several kids said he’s “bad”, and one kid even started yelling “thief”.
I wouldn’t want to put any limits on a teacher, but I would probably make sure that they realized how political it is here and how blogging strong views about politics might hurt their student numbers, and thus their pay. Sadly, I don’t know if any of my student’s parents would get worked up about Nazi views or not. Most Taiwanese don’t seem too sensitive to that issue. You’re right, though. You don’t want an employee you can’t get along with.