An upshot to the "Twitter Files" nonsense is that employees are fools to communicate on employer IT systems.
But it would be absolute #infosec disaster for the company if employees used third parties'.
Better employee privacy protections needed to address this conflict.
@cathygellis Can you please expound on this?
Why are employees "fools" for communicating on employer IT systems?
In this particular instance (a billionaire shitposter bought the company and aired their dirty laundry), it ended poorly, but that seems more like an exception than a rule.
@LouisIngenthron Agree to some extent that it's exceptional, but I think without more effective regulation it may not be as exceptional going forward.
And there's always been a gap between how private employees think their communications are and how private they actually are. That vagueness has always been a problem, albeit maybe not one quite this big.
@cathygellis Idk, I think most people assume their boss has full access to all of their work media, and govern their speech accordingly
So long as one isn't doing anything illegal or fire-able, the company-run platforms are typically the most private and secure method of communication (for the company, anyway, not the employee). Using external systems opens the company up to a whole host of security and legal troubles. (Full disclosure, I've been a CTO running such systems in the past.)
Can you cite any examples where an employee was harmed for using company media while not doing anything wrong themselves?
@cathygellis Interesting. Hadn't heard of anything like that before, but it does sound like some nonsense.
Would be interesting to read an article about that. "5 Unexpected Legal Risks of Using Company Media" or something.
@LouisIngenthron That's enough of a good idea that I'm inclined to think one has been written already (albeit before the Musk nonsense).
@cathygellis It does sound awfully close to @mmasnick's beat.
Although, I wonder how many of these nooks and crannies have actually been explored by courts vs being quickly & quietly settled by wildly disproportionate parties. Would there be enough established precedence for such an article?
@LouisIngenthron @mmasnick FYI Mike's beat and my beat are often the same beat, and beaten out in the same place...
@cathygellis I knew I followed you for a reason 🤦♂️ 😆
@cathygellis The messaging we generally get is assume anything you write on corp systems may be made public, because who knows what some future lawsuit will scoop up during discovery. The main difference here is Elon is basically doing discovery on his own company?
@LouisIngenthron See, e.g., the cases deciding if employees waived their attorney-client privilege by using company IT systems.
I think the disconnect between employee expectations and legal reality is bigger than you think.