After watching six other states pass legislation in 2012, Washington legislators are negotiating a bill to address requests by an employer for access to an employee’s or prospective employee’s social networking accounts. Substitute Senate Bill (SSB) 5211 is working its way through the legislative system and was most recently passed out of Labor and Workforce Committee (House) on April 3, 2013, with a recommendation to “keep working on it.”

In its current state, SSB 5211 states:

Clearly Reed Hastings, CEO of Netflix, didn’t read the earlier post Cautionary Tale: CFO Fired for Social Media Use. In July, Hastings posted on his Faecbook page and on the company blog that people had watched over one billion hours of the company’s video’s in the previous month. Netflix stock soared on that news. The SEC took note and was not pleased. According to the SEC, this sort of news should have been shared in a more traditional fashion such as a press release. By sharing it on Facebook and on the company blog, the news was given out to “fans” which gave those people insider knowledge. But, argument is now being made that the news was public once it was shared on the Internet since it could easily be forwarded, shared and reported. The SEC may find itself in a position of having to update its rules to take into account the new ways information is shared.

For more information on social media, blogging and all other commercial transaction issues, please contact Chris Pothering at cpothering@scblaw.com.

Dish Network has been ordered to change its social media policy after the National Labor Relations Board found that the employee handbook prevented its workers from making disparaging or defamatory comments about the company. As reported earlier in this post on Costco’s social media policy, the NLRB is cracking down on corporate social media policies and how the policies affect workers’ rights.

The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) issued a ruling against Costco on September 7th that we should all be paying attention to. The ruling effectively invalidated Costco’s employee policies as they pertained to the Internet and social media. It should come as no surprise that the NLRB held that Costco’s employee policies were “too broad” and could be interpreted as stifling Costco’s employees’ right to free speech under the National Labor Relations Act.

Are you friends with your primary care physician on Facebook? Do you follow your doctor on Twitter? Do you ask for medical advice from your doctor online? If you do ask for medical advice, have you ever worried about whether or not your private medical information may or may not be actually held confidential from others? What about that HIPAA form you are always asked to sign at the doctor’s office? Are HIPAA guidelines being followed by doctor’s using social media to interact with their patients online?

According to an article in The SF Gate, Ryan Greysen, an assistant clinical professor of medicine at UCSF, surveyed 48 state medical boards that license and discipline doctors. Greysen found that 44 of them received reports of violations of online professionalism, including violations of improper contact with patients, inappropriately giving diagnoses and misrepresentation of one’s credentials. The disciplinary measures ranged from limiting or suspending physicians’ licenses to revoking them.

Doctors need to remember that, like lawyers, they have a higher level of care and privacy owed to their patients. The Federation of State Medical Boards’ Special Committee on Ethics and Professionalism was asked in 2011 to provide guidelines on the use of social media:

Careful lawyers should assume that everything they post on a social networking platform is going to be read by “a 62-year-old male judge without a sense of humor.” So states Simon Chester, lawyer, blogger and technology expert, in a recent article in U.S. Law Week.

Not so long ago, few law firms used social media. Most law firms banned its use entirely. Now, however, young lawyers and staff are using social media – and so are many senior lawyers. This shift has led to a fundamental change in the ways people communicate with each other, both personally and professionally. It has also changed the way we need to balance the opportunities offered by emerging social media tools with long-standing legal professional responsibilities.

Following all the media attention from employers asking potential employees for their Facebook passwords, some state legislatures are now in the process of passing bills to prevent employers from asking for passwords from their employees. Illinois, Michigan and California legislatures are all working on bills to address the privacy concerns of employees and, in some states, students.

The use of social media for business development purposes is here to stay. Lawyers can’t ignore it – unless they want to fall hopelessly behind.

Some lawyers have embraced social media and are interfacing with their colleagues, clients, potential clients and referral sources in a wide range of different online forums. Other lawyers are curious but hesitant to bring social media into their daily practice. Whether out front, far behind, or somewhere in between, your law firm needs a social media policy.