Pros And Negatives Of Social Media

A growing hot topic, and cause for concern is the increasing use of social media in the workplace. The landscape for communication has changed, and the line between personal and professional communications has been blurred. How will your employer manage the risks associated with the use of social media and at the same time, gain the benefits that this media form provides? While many employers were initially concerned that employees would use company time and equipment for socializing with friends, they are quickly learning that many social networks can also be used directly for work purposes.

These new tools are “dedicated to community-based input, interaction, content-sharing and collaboration,” (Social Media, 2015). Everyone is on social media these days, including your employees, your competition, clients, and future clients. Being able to communicate with everyone is vital to the growth of the NSC. The problem with social media is that NSC can be held liable for legal issues arising from our employees’ social media use and accounts. Examples of issues include incidents such as discriminatory social media messages, different forms of harassing on Facebook, or even radical up scene tweets. Companies can also witness the issue of employees leaking of crucial company or customer information. These risks exist regardless of whether the employee commits the offense at the office using company-owned computer resources or at home using their personal social media accounts, since they are often identified as an employee of the company in their social media profile. Setting guidelines, training, and purpose behind social media can help the company grow expediential, while minimizing the negative ramifications affiliated with social

The Growing Trend of Law Enforcement Organizations Utilizing Online Social Media and Social Networking Services to Build Intelligence

Today, public safety is more refined, and strategies of communication are a lot quicker. Law enforcement tools have evolved from posters to police radio, patrol cars and social networks, like Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. Social networking has quickly become a valuable intelligence-gathering tool for law enforcement agencies, also as a supply of proof for defense and prosecution personnel who search Facebook pages, Twitter feeds or YouTube videos seeking to discredit witnesses, establish enforcement bias, hunt proof or establish associations between gang members (Perry, 2014). Some enforcement employees, notably those accustomed to the use of social media frequently communicate with friends or family, typically post material with very little or no thought as to whom could have access to it or how it should be shared. Inappropriate or careless postings on social media sites will impact an agency negatively in many ways. An employee’s statements concerning coworkers as well as the departmental leadership will produce dissension within the work, inappropriate communication, or harm a law enforcement agency’s relationship with the diverse community it serves (Perry, 2014).

Social media policies are put in place for the sake of ensuring the measure of responsibility of employee’s usage of social media. Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Twitter are some of the platforms that are used my people across the nation (Russell, 2011). Information of every type and social opinions become available at the click of a button. The content that is placed in these messages is status updates can be crucial to the perception of both the employee and the company they are working for on a daily basis. These policies are enacted to ensure there is and understanding between the employee as well as the company concerning the risk that are associated with using these platforms in specific ways that may affect the company depending

Criminal investigation techniques will change in the future from the changing culture of today. Today we are a much more technological culture and with that cyber-crimes are occurring more and more frequently. Also on the rise is terrorism which changes how our law enforcement agencies have to operate. The pairing of our technological culture with the rise in terrorism makes for a deadly combination. “Internet technology and the proliferation of social networking sites have changed how terrorist organizations recruit and communicate with would-be acolytes. This development has rendered the collection of intelligence an issue of salience for federal, state, and local authorities” (Mayer & Erickson, 2011, June 23). While our technological culture has had many advantages such as faster communication this has also sown a distrust between many of the community and law enforcement through the use of social media. One bad decision can by a law enforcement officer can become a nationally phenomenon if recorded and shared on social media. This has caused much scrutiny for many law enforcement agencies and has caused distrust of law enforcement.

Social media is moving rapidly towards pervasive connectivity that will have an impact on how digital search warrants should be granted. The majority of Americans on a daily basis utilize social media and the vast amount of the exchanged information is beyond measurable. Due to overwhelming social media usage, there is heightened concern among the public over what can be accessed by law enforcement officials and what should be the scope of their search warrants.

The major flaw in the relationship between social media and police agencies it that they have to establish a relationship. People have to physically like or follow a certain group on Facebook or Twitter it is not automatic. A vast majority of people do not do this, for example the population of Edmonton as of 2011 was 812,200 yet the amount of people who follow the Edmonton police service on Facebook is only 89, 555 which equates to

The use of social media within the fire service is a controversial civil issue in which parties on both sides may feel as though his or her rights have been violated. Many fire and emergency services organizations, nationwide have established policies that prohibit and/or restrict the use of social media by employees, due to the growing problems associated with its use. Social networking is a relatively new issue to the legal system with judicial opinions that vary in wide degree. Social networking has become a tool that can convey a positive or negative image upon a fire department, therefore posting must be performed in good taste as to not convey negative public opinion upon the fire department and its members.

Social Media is a great way for someone to share information with people from different cultures and backgrounds. It is also a great way to stay connected to family and friends from all over the world. Also, a great way to get to know more about someone that you may have recently met. Social media has become a very important part of everyone’s life but this new activity has its advantages and disadvantages, especially in the workplace.

Issues include the inappropriate use of social media for personal use, defamation, harassment, misleading and deceptive conduct and uncertainty over the ownership of intellectual property such as blogs and contact lists. Though employers are not in control of the use of social media itself with regard to what is and not published, they can control the conduct of their employees during work hours. Social media now presents a real legal threat to employers, and it is an absolute must for businesses to have dedicated and well-communicated social media policies governing the usage of these technologies

As a civil engineer, social media defines you in the workplace either positively or negatively. One needs to be responsible when posting things onto social media. It is also good to note that when the ASCE talks about social media they are also referring to email and printed writing. There are many different examples of when posting something on social media can affect your job. According to J.T Ripton you have to be careful when posting comments about your boss or your latest job offers, “Putting your complaints out there for the world to see is never the way to go,

Almost every firefighter carries a mobile phone and almost every mobile phone has a camera and access to the internet, it has become common place to take pictures and post them on the internet. Having this ability to post on the internet, usually on a social media website such as Facebook or Twitter has caught many fire departments off guard, and now they are scrambling to catch up and develop policies and procedures regulating their employee’s use of this technology. First Amendment rights prohibit the making of any law abridging the freedom of speech, unfortunately, it is all too common to read about a firefighter or ambulance crew member under investigation for a controversial Facebook post. Social media and digital imagery cases pose a serious risk to the reputation of emergency service organizations, not to mention the livelihood of the personnel involved. Cases such as these can create the potential for civil liability and in some cases criminal liability. When a piece of information, picture or video is uploaded to the internet, that information has the potential to be spread around the world within minutes. Social media and digital imagery reveal one challenge facing administrators: creating policies and procedures to protect the agency without violating the employees First Amendment rights.

Personal use of social media sites among police officers brings forth yet another complicated issue. The IACP’s Center for Social Media, urges police departments to prohibit officers from representing the department on personal web sites (wagley, 2014). As part of my social media order all employees would be required to sign a waiver agreeing to not make any associations between themselves and the department. However, when utilizing professional networking sites such as LinkedIn, divulgence of occupation and department would be acceptable. While employees would not be permitted to provide the department with sensitive information such as passwords, if an officer’s site was reported to contain activities or behaviors that violated laws or polices of law officials, they would be subject to disciplinary actions. Posts, comments and any other dialogue pertaining to the department would be prohibited. In addition, videos, photos of any kind that identified said department would be forbidden especially those of officers while in police precinct, uniformed officers, and those wearing apparel that represented the department. While the general order would not be designed to restrict nor put stipulations or limitations on ones life style, the intent would be to preserve

The usage of social media and other electronic communication is rising very quickly as numbers of social media platforms, applications and outlets are continuing to advance. Many people use online journals, social media platforms, online chat rooms and symposium to connect personally, also professionally with others. Social media is an intriguing and beneficial gadget when used correctly. The nature of social media, however, can act as a risk as it attempts direct posting freedom that permits very minimal time to reflect on the post and carries an additional burden that what is posted on the web is detectable by a court of law even when it has been deleted a long time ago.