The rising use of social media by companies and individuals alike has created new workplace issues for employers. Restricting your employees’ use of social media is a complicated issue. On one side are certain employee rights-including the right to free speech and the right to engage in concerted activity-that are specifically protected under labor laws. On the other side are employer concerns about reputational and financial harm to the business that could result from inappropriate or damaging online posts by employees.

Many companies have chosen to adopt a social media policy that lays out rules regarding employees’ use of social media accounts. While any policy must be tailored to the specific needs of the company in question, the following provides some guidelines for any business looking to establish its own rules and procedures regarding appropriate use of social media by its employees.

Employee Rights Under Labor Laws

The National Relations Labor Act specifically safeguards employees’ freedom of speech, and also gives employees the right to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid and protection. All employees are protected under these laws, regardless of whether their workforce is unionized or not. This means that all employees have the right to criticize their company and talk to each other about wages, hours, and working conditions on Facebook, Twitter, and other public social media platforms. Any restrictions a company imposes on social media use must not have a chilling effect on this right to engage in protected speech and concerted activities. For example, the National Relations Labor Board has stated that a total ban on social media use at the workplace is too restrictive and that, at a minimum, employees must be allowed to engage in online conversations with co-workers during nonwork hours (like lunch or a break) in nonwork areas (like the cafeteria).

Creating a Social Media Policy

If you decide you want to adopt a social media policy for your company, you should think about what makes sense for your employees and company. You will want to have a policy that is tailored to your specific needs. This is a changing area of law so you may want to consult with an experienced employment law attorney to help you draft your policy.

Here are some general guidelines to consider.

• Create a simple and easy-to-follow policy that can be modified quickly in response to changes in the laws regarding social media.
• Avoid overly burdensome, impractical, and unnecessary restrictions, as these may violate applicable law (including federal and state labor laws), and also can serve to undermine employee moral (encouraging non-compliance). All rules should serve a definite purpose without being over-reaching or overly broad.
• Define what information is confidential and should not be disclosed. Often this includes non-public sensitive information related to the company’s finances, business strategies, personnel, competition, legal matters, operations, or other internal affairs.
• Provide specific examples of prohibited conduct, particularly where certain behavior has proven to be commonplace amongst employees at your company.
• Familiarize yourself with all laws, rules, and regulations respecting social media usage, including those addressing freedom of speech, infringement of intellectual property, labor relations, advertising and promotions (including FTC endorsement guidelines), and employer/employee federal and state regulations.
• Regularly communicate to all employees the importance of adhering to the policy.
• Maintain an open line of communication with all employees-encourage questions from anyone who is unsure about whether or not their postings are in compliance with the policy. Provide the names and contact information of designated personnel to handle these types of inquiries.

Make Sure Employees Identify Themselves Online

When discussing the company, and its products or services, in any form of social media, employees should identify themselves by name and title if they are speaking on behalf of the company. If they are not an official spokesperson for the company, they should make it clear that they are speaking for themselves and not on behalf of the company. Employees should be reminded that they are personally responsible for the content that they post while acting on their own behalf and not as an authorized representative of the company. Employees should note use a company email address for private, non-business communications.

Privacy Statement

Employees should be informed that any use (personal or professional) of an employer’s electronic information and communication systems is never private, and, the employer can review any employee use of their systems to ensure compliance with all applicable policies, laws, and regulations.

Compliance Monitoring and Response to Violations

The policy should set forth in sufficient detail how the company will monitor employee use of social media platforms (including company-managed and personal accounts); and respond to a violation of its social media policy.

Originally published at https://www.paleylegal.com.

To date, the rise of virtual reality (VR) has been driven primarily by the videogame industry. Palmer Luckey created the first Oculus Rift specifically for gaming (and recently entered into a partnership with Xbox). HTC’s Vive (made in partnership with Valve Corporation, the videogame developer) and Sony’s PlayStation VR were both created by gaming companies. Whether intentionally or not, VR appeared to be a technological advancement to be cultivated and appreciated primarily by the self-admitted ‘geeks’ of society while the rest of us were expected to idly stand by and miss the proverbial boat.

By way of contrast, despite the phenomenal success of James Cameron’s “Avatar” in 2009, the VR/film business failed to take off as expected. This lackluster performance was due, in no small part, to a lack of in-home adoption and commercial availability of VR-related devices and accessories. In the past several years, however, as VR headsets have become readily available to consumers (starting with the Oculus Rift headset), VR-gaming has been forced to share the limelight with the motion picture industry. Let’s not forget, those above a ‘certain age’ are far more likely to watch a film or TV show than to attempt to set a new record playing “Robo Recall” or “The Climb.” As such, the film business is now rapidly embracing the VR wave and as a result, content creators aren’t simply telling us stories anymore — they are creating intense, immersive experiences.

Most major (and mini-major) Hollywood studios are getting into the VR game in a major way, including Warner Bros. (which entered into a multi-picture agreement with IMAX in 2015), 20th Century Fox (which provided its viewers with the ability to watch the Superbowl in virtual reality for the first time in 2017), Lionsgate (which recently partnered with Qualcomm to power the Power Rangers VR experience at 2017’s CES), MGM (which recently invested $50 million into VR game developer Survios), and Disney (which recently invested $65 million into VR hardware and content startup, Jaunt). Additionally, in 2016, the Sundance Film Festival debuted over 30 VR-related projects at is experimental (and wildly successful) “New Frontier” show. In January of 2015, Oculus launched Story Studio, helmed by a Pixar alum, in order to produce film content for the platform. Every major studio is dipping its toe in the VR waters, and its magic has invaded some of the most popular of today’s franchises, including Fox’s “The X-Man” and Warner Bros.’ “Batman vs. Superman.”

VR is also playing an important role in the movie marketing process, as the producers of two recent Oscar contenders — “The Revenant” and “The Martian” — created intense and empathy-laden experiences designed (successfully) to give fans the opportunity to find out what it feels like to survive a bear attack or be stranded on Mars.

Needless to say, the VR-infused entertainment gold rush is well underway, as big tech and big Hollywood hastily grab a seat at the table. Even Facebook, the social media behemoth well known for its prescience, not only owns Oculus (having paid a mere 2.3 billion for the company) but has recently formed a VR movie studio of its own, staffed by former creatives of Lucasfilm and Pixar, in order to create and share powerfully immersive content with its users.

This general trend will most likely continue as the entertainment industry seeks to expand the application of this cutting-edge technology, figuring out new and more imaginative ways to exploit its potential. VR is predicted by many to reach mass adoption in the coming years, and filmed content, as opposed to gaming, is expected to lead the way as its hottest new collaborator.

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