Surveillance on employees personal social media, ethical or not

While people’s social life and work-life should be kept completely independent of each other, with modernization and the advent of social media, employers often want to monitor their employees’ views and opinions through social media. Although it is in fact a public sharing platform where anyone can out their opinion for others to see, the very same opinion by a person can be traced back to a company that the person works for. Anything an employee does on the internet which does not align with the company’s views, and mission, can potentially hurt the company’s reputation. This is why often employers want to monitor their workers’ online presence. 

There is also the part where an employee could be bad-mouthing and insulting the company they work at. Whether it is false or true, spreading any negative or secret element of the company to people on the internet can be bad for business which is why this also needs to be monitored. 

However, monitoring the online personal life of an employee is a grey area for any business. This can be encroaching on an employee’s personal life and time. Often, employers can also be prejudiced in their selection process due to the information found over the internet about a prospective employee. This is unethical and goes against discrimination and equality laws. 

Issues involving ethics and social media can be very difficult to determine solidly. Employers can often be tempted to monitor their employees’ social media accounts to ensure that their employee is not doing any harm to the company’s reputation. However, it would be unethical if the employer is to hold an employee accountable for something they have done on the social media platform without having prior permission to monitor their employee’s social media platforms. A solid company policy regarding the conduct of an employee over the social media platforms or a permission grant from the employee to the employer about having no problem with their social media accounts being monitored will save the company from any such disputes.