Arkansas bill would let bosses force employees to friend them on Facebook!

[Landslide Lyndon]

The party of small gubmint.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/03/24/this-arkansas-bill-would-let-bosses-force-employees-to-friend-them-on-facebook/

An Arkansas Senate committee this week is set to consider a bill that would reverse some online privacy protections for workers, undoing part of a social media rights law passed two years ago.

The bill, passed by a 91-1 Arkansas House vote in February, would lift the ban on employers requiring employees to connect with them on social media, thereby allowing bosses to force workers to friend them on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. But some employers would be granted even more access to their employees’ accounts.

The proposal, scheduled for a Senate labor committee hearing on Wednesday, would leave in place the earlier law’s other provisions, which ban employers from asking employees to change their privacy settings or provide their account passwords. But some employers would be exempt from even those prohibitions. Religious organizations and those that deal with the supervision of children — such as schools, day cares and summer camps — would be altogether excluded from the social media rules.

...

Update, March 25, 2:41 p.m.: The bill died in the Senate committee.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

Get your government hands off my right to pry into my employees lives!

[Grumpier Than Thou]

I would lose my job if I was friends with my boss on Facebook.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Yeah, you see, this is small government Lyndon. Because employers, not employees, set the terms of employment. I don't necessarily like this, but at the same time, if I had a company I should be able to retain the right to make sure the employees don't defame or damage the company.

[DemPGH]

One of the most transparent attempts to breach privacy and affront freedom of speech that I've seen, and there have been quite a few in states like that! "Freedom to spy, freedom to discriminate," et. al. Vile. 

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

How did this only get 1 vote against it in the House? 

[MaxQue]

How did this only get 1 vote against it in the House? 

My guess is than representatives don't really read bills, they vote as their funders say them to vote. They had no clue it was in the bill.

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Also they should be able to read your diary, look at you having sex and mount CCTV in every wall of your house.

[badgate]

You should have to set your relationship status to "It's Complicated" with your boss

[Indy Texas]

Yeah, you see, this is small government Lyndon. Because employers, not employees, set the terms of employment. I don't necessarily like this, but at the same time, if I had a company I should be able to retain the right to make sure the employees don't defame or damage the company.

You do realize that companies already have ways of doing that, such as making you sign a nondisclosure agreement or a code of conduct?

This is just an excuse for some fat old Arkansas businessman to make his 20 year old female secretary let him follow her on Instagram so he can creep on her spring break photos. Or perhaps for some sexually frustrated right-wing Republican state legislator to keep an eye on all those fresh-faced, strapping young college men who intern in his office.

[Beet]

This is a relative sideshow - the real story is that companies in the future will be heavily monitoring employee behavior using predictive modelling.

[TNF]

[Rooney]

I fail to see how this is anymore of an infringement on personal rights and privacy than what the NSA, FBI and CIA do to Americans on a regular basis.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Yeah, you see, this is small government Lyndon. Because employers, not employees, set the terms of employment. I don't necessarily like this, but at the same time, if I had a company I should be able to retain the right to make sure the employees don't defame or damage the company.

You do realize that companies already have ways of doing that, such as making you sign a nondisclosure agreement or a code of conduct?

This is just an excuse for some fat old Arkansas businessman to make his 20 year old female secretary let him follow her on Instagram so he can creep on her spring break photos. Or perhaps for some sexually frustrated right-wing Republican state legislator to keep an eye on all those fresh-faced, strapping young college men who intern in his office.

Maybe. They have a right to demand that if they set the terms of employment.

[Landslide Lyndon]

Yeah, you see, this is small government Lyndon. Because employers, not employees, set the terms of employment. I don't necessarily like this, but at the same time, if I had a company I should be able to retain the right to make sure the employees don't defame or damage the company.

You do realize that companies already have ways of doing that, such as making you sign a nondisclosure agreement or a code of conduct?

This is just an excuse for some fat old Arkansas businessman to make his 20 year old female secretary let him follow her on Instagram so he can creep on her spring break photos. Or perhaps for some sexually frustrated right-wing Republican state legislator to keep an eye on all those fresh-faced, strapping young college men who intern in his office.

Maybe. They have a right to demand that if they set the terms of employment.

So, forcing someone to buy healthcare is tyranny and worse than Hitler.
But forcing someone to accept his/her boss snooping around his/her social media profile is liberty.
Thanks for clarifying that.

[Atlas Has Shrugged]

Yeah, you see, this is small government Lyndon. Because employers, not employees, set the terms of employment. I don't necessarily like this, but at the same time, if I had a company I should be able to retain the right to make sure the employees don't defame or damage the company.

You do realize that companies already have ways of doing that, such as making you sign a nondisclosure agreement or a code of conduct?

This is just an excuse for some fat old Arkansas businessman to make his 20 year old female secretary let him follow her on Instagram so he can creep on her spring break photos. Or perhaps for some sexually frustrated right-wing Republican state legislator to keep an eye on all those fresh-faced, strapping young college men who intern in his office.

Maybe. They have a right to demand that if they set the terms of employment.

So, forcing someone to buy healthcare is tyranny and worse than Hitler.
But forcing someone to accept his/her boss snooping around his/her social media profile is liberty.
Thanks for clarifying that.

Your strawman is on fire, but I don't feel fond enough about you to bother putting it out. So you can just keep burning out in the cornfield.

[publicunofficial]

The GOP's worship of employers as benevolent gods is disgusting. If you don't operate a business, you have no rights.

[muon2]

An employer has no right to your credit card password to see what unusual expenditures you make. Similarly they should have no right to your Facebook password as a condition of employment (except for certain financial positions governed by federal law). Employers are of course free to see anything that you posted publicly. They are also entitled to see what you chose to do on their electronic equipment.

[Adam Griffin]

Good riddance to AR Democrats. In all likelihood, at least thirty of them voted for this nonsense.

[SUSAN CRUSHBONE]

The GOP's worship of employers as benevolent gods is disgusting. If you don't operate a business, you have no rights.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u8-4n9yxZ_s

[TNF]

> We don't like a particular aspect of how companies operate.

> Let's completely change our society into a Communist state.

This is the direct result of capitalism, so yes, that sounds like a grand idea

[freepcrusher]

this is a red herring. The thing to do is to create a "decoy" account.