Reputation Management, Internet Privacy, and Social Media Quick Hits

Facebook Celebrates Sixth Birthday with Redesign

To celebrate its sixth birthday, Facebook has rolled out some changes to the layout of the site. The changes are geared toward making site navigation easier, but, so far, reaction from users has been mixed. Of course, that’s nothing new. Everytime Facebook changes something about its design, it causes a temporary uproar. Naturally, there are some initial privacy concerns to hash out (such as the one in the next Quick Hit), so we’ll dig deeper into the changes later and explain how they affect your personal data for another post.

Early Problems Arise from Facebook Redesign

One early problem with Facebook’s redesign is that users can’t hide their application activity from their friends. Facebook has addressed this issue somewhat by saying that they will allow users to control how their application activity is displayed. As this article from AllFacebook points out, whatever solution Facebook comes up with can either help developers or help users, but, seemingly, can’t help both. It will be interesting to see how Facebook resolves this issue as the changes rollout to the entire site.

Fugitive’s Social Media Use Leads to His Arrest

Lockport, NY police have a good sense of humor. After tracking down a fugitive through his social media updates, they left the following thank you message on his Facebook wall, “”It was due to your diligence in keeping us informed that now you are under arrest.”

Will Unclear Social Media Policies Lead to a Rise in Wrongful Dismissal Lawsuits?

This article from MediaPost explores the growing problem companies have with regulating social media use among their employees. The article quotes Joseph Rosenbaum, a Partner at Reed Smith and chair of the firm’s global Advertising Technology & Media Law practice, who says confusion over appropriate social media use will lead to many wrongful dismissal lawsuits based on employees saying, “hey, I was just talking about my job on Twitter and they didn’t like what I was saying because I wasn’t touting the company’s line.”

As we explained in a post earlier in the week, companies that prepare intelligent and transparent communications policies will be the ones to reap the benefits of social media technology. Those who don’t are going to struggle.

Will Winter Olympic Athletes be Allowed to Tweet the Games?

As the Winter Olympic Games are set to get under way, athletes are expressing confusion over the IOC social media guidelines. Apparently, athletes can tweet and blog as long as they don’t “act like a journalist” and they can share pictures as long as they don’t include logos of unofficial Olympics sponsors. I imagine there will be some difficulty in properly enforcing these guidelines.