Twilight Invasion recently posted a list of people who’ve been fired because of their weblog. Interesting to read the stories other than mine.
- dooce
- Sarcastic Journalist
- Michael Hanscom, a Microsoft employee
- Banjo Jones, a reporter for the Houston Chronicle
Gibberations- sassy little punkin
- geekly
- Denis Horgan, who was forced to shut down his blog by his employer
Apparently, this list should also include Stephen Stewart, though with only a post-by-post method of trawling the archives, I didn’t attempt to dig backwards through 18 months of posts to see if there’s a more specific mention on his site.
Anyone else?
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Gregg Easterbrook lost an ESPN job.
Kevin Sites had to shut down for a while, about an year or so ago.
I don’t know who these people are or what they did to get fired and it’s a shame that it happened but I see it on blogs all the time. Statements such as… That lazy fat ass in the cubical next to me, my boss is a dumb fucker, or Ms X (the red haired goddess) and I had sex in the bathroom during the Christmas party. Simply have no place on a public blog.
People you can reason with, but Corporations are not people, they are an un-human entity and rarely if ever have a sense of humor. I understand free speech and I understand that these are OUR personal thoughts but still the blogs are public in a big way and we need to remember that.
After Michael was let go I wrote him a long email explaining why I thought he was fired and very little of it had to do with the final image posted but rather the long running jabs at Micro-Soft. The image was just the final straw and one that MS legal dept felt was one they could stand behind.
We bloggers need to remember that talking about friends/co-workers and our employers IS an invasion of their privacy and frankly neither legal or right. We take open thoughts and communication for granted but that’s not the way of the world. Maybe Aunt Betty doesn’t want the world to know she has hemorrhoids or is gay and having an affair with the next-door neighbor. When we bad mouth our friends, Ex’s and co-workers in our blogs we are no better than the office gossip guy/girl that runs around spreading rumors.
In fact we have the ability to reach a far wider audience. Perhaps Michael can explain how many people stopped by after his run in with slash dot?
Blogs are powerful tools and with that power comes responsibility. We have the power to reach millions, we can change the world.(and we will) But as we write we need to stop and think. Our words will be around for a long, long time. Do we really want to say this?
I’m not suggesting we not speak our minds, just to be mindful of how we say it.
As Mark Twain said. Be careful of the words you speak today, for you may have them for dinner tomorrow.
There is no mention of why or how I got sacked on my weblog. In my case I was a manager in BlackStar.co.uk and for 8 months had been having a pretty miserable time, had complained repeatedly about certain things and got nowhere. I reached my limit, let loose with an outburst on my weblog, and was summarily dismissed.
While I agree that care should be taken in publishing, great care in fact, the employer also has a duty of care to it’s employees - you can’t just push people around and expect to get away with it.
If you’re in the UK being summarily dismissed like myself can be considered a breech of employment law as the punishment does not fit the crime. You’ll not get your job back (except in really special circumstances) but by visiting your solicitor and talking the company to an Industrial Tribunal you may win a better settlement, even if you really did say some harsh things it’s worth a try - summary dismissal is supposed to be for people who steal, sexually harrass members of staff or do some great harm to the company, a weblog post is rarely that bad.
Hi there. I am the author of the Gibberations blog. I just wanted to clarify that I have NEVER been fired because of something I wrote in my blog. If you look closely you will see that the link you give points to an entry of mine falling under the category: Dreams. I guess that it was an unconscious reaction to some hidden fear I had after discovering that certain bloggers had been fired. I would appreciate greatly if you could remove my entry from the list. Thanks in advance.
All taken care of, Kiffin. Thanks for letting me know!
Thanks alot Michael, appreciate it. Nice blog, but the way.
One more… http://www.nunatsiaq.com/news/nunavut/40806_08.html
One more person has been added to the list - Joyce “Troutgirl” Park, who ironically worked for Friendster. The posts related to her employer were very positive, although they acknowledged that Friendster’s systems were less than perfect in the past.
Add one more - Joyce “Troutgirl” Park, who ironically worked for Friendster…
Continuing the Discussion