Mangan, David --- "Social media in the workplace" [2017] ELECD 875; in Mangan, David; Gillies, E. Lorna (eds), "The Legal Challenges of Social Media" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2017) 201

Book Title: The Legal Challenges of Social Media

Editor(s): Mangan, David; Gillies, E. Lorna

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781785364501

Section: Chapter 10

Section Title: Social media in the workplace

Author(s): Mangan, David

Number of pages: 21

Abstract/Description:

The employment setting reveals much about the competing interests subsumed within the term ‘social media’. At the forefront of considerations is business reputation – a phrase which has been used as the basis for limiting workers’ speech. Focusing on UK law, to permit discipline for any form of social media remark (as is currently the case) would be inconsistent with the spirit of twenty-first-century developments in the common law understanding of defamation law that have expanded protection for speech. The argument here is that, following developments in defamation law, in the employment setting there must also be scope for remarks by workers on user-generated content platforms, while also protecting business reputation. Keywords: employment; discipline; defamation; business reputation; workplace speech