pharmacy technician - Ontario College of Pharmacists

SOCIAL MEDIA
REGULATING THE USE
OF SOCIAL MEDIA
THE PROLIFERATION OF SOCIAL
MEDIA TODAY WARRANTS
THE ENGAGEMENT OF HEALTH
PROFESSIONALS ON WHAT
STANDARDS SHOULD PREVAIL
IN REGULATING ITS USE
By Barbara Cadotte, Senior Policy Advisor
Employees are discovering that they may
face consequences to their employment as
a result of their use of social media such as
Facebook while outside of working hours, if
it relates to their employment. The parallel
in the regulatory field is that health professionals
have a well-established tradition of
upholding standards of professional behaviour,
which may or may not include ‘off-duty’
activities. This article will briefly outline the
methods through which the behaviour of both
employees and professionals is circumscribed,
examine parallels between employee and
professional conduct and present a framework
that has been used to create a ‘reasonable
standard’ to evaluate off-duty behaviour. The
proliferation of social media today warrants
the engagement of health professionals on
what standards should prevail in regulating its
use. The question to be asked is whether it is
time for Web 2.0 to meet Regulation 2.0?
REGULATING EMPLOYEE OFF-DUTY CONDUCT
The ability of an employer to discipline offduty
behaviour is dependent upon establishing
a standard of proof that the behaviour has a
direct impact on the employer and its operations.
Jurisprudence with respect to employee
use of Web 2.0 (e.g. MySpace, Facebook,
blogs) is an emerging area of employment
law. The onus is on the employer to prove
harm, demonstrate the degree of the impact
and establish a causal connection. Grounds
for dismissal are present where it can be
proved that a post by an identified employee,
whose image is important to their ability to
execute their duties, has seriously damaged a
company’s reputation. In 2007, the College
of Nurses of Ontario reminded members
to investigate whether their employer had a
policy on what is acceptable for staff to discuss
PHARMACY CONNECTION ~ SPRING 2011 ~ PAGE 23