Employee Fired for Facebook Comment

June 30th, 2008

By Ben

When it comes to the Internet, you can never be too careful about what you say.

For those who believe that the content on their Facebook, MySpace profiles and personal blogs will not get them in hot water, they’re in for a shocking realization. The Internet is a public domain, and anything put on the Web can be found, and can be used against you.

London resident James Brennan discovered this the hard way, when he was fired from his job in London. His crime? Writing “F— the Partnership” as his Facebook status. (The Partnership refers to the John Lewis Partnership, the chain of stores where he worked.)

Brennan thought his comments would remain private, but some of his co-workers saw his page and showed it to his boss. Brennan was fired on the spot.

Unhappy with his boss and colleagues, Brennan commented on the situation:

“At the end of the day what I wrote was private. You would never get sacked for saying something like that in the pub. I was sacked from Waitrose for something I said on Facebook in my own time. The bosses only saw it because one of my colleagues grassed me up. They printed out a copy of the Facebook page to use as evidence against me. It is an infringement of my privacy.”

Do you think Brennan should have been fired from his job?

Entry Filed under: Web 2.0