alaskaflyer
Final Approach
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Alaskaflyer
I was reading the flight attendant thread and pulled up the blog linked by Scott. It is authored by a FA who had been terminated by Delta allegedly because of her writing activities on the Internet. I read this post:
Anyone else been exposed to this problem?Hi All,
I get a lot of requests for interviews from college students. Here's the latest... I thought it might interest you. It's specifically about internet censorship:
I began my blog in January of 2004. It started out as therapy for me, since I had just lost my mother to cancer in Sept. of 2003.
- When did you begin writing your blog? What was your purpose for starting it up?
No, I still am not aware of any censorship rules. The only policy that they were able to show me in connection with my termination was a very vague policy that prohibits "inappropriate behavior." Delta has no blogging policy.
- Were you aware that the airline had any censorship rules in place when working for them?
I still am not clear on the definition of "inappropriate behavior." I have asked Delta management repeatedly to elaborate on that and they have refused.
- If they had such regulations, were these made clear to you?
My opinion is that companies should implement blogging policies and make their employees aware of them before they take any action against them. And, in my opinion, termination of employment is too harsh a punishment for bloggers, unless they were intending to do harm to their company through their blog.
- What is your opinion on companies having control over there employees freedom of speech over blogs?
Yes, I HOPE more companies implement blogging policies so that employees know where they stand.
- With the number of bloggers growing daily, do you think that company censorship policies are going to become more common?
I think that it is up to each company to determine where they draw the line in the sand. The important thing is that they draw the line in the sand by implementing blogging and internet policies so that employees know where they stand and are not randomly and arbitrarily fired/disciplined. I now self-censor, since half the world reads my blog. It's not as fun when you know all your friends and family (and possibly ex-boyfriends) are reading your blog. You can't be as open. It was more fun when my blog was anonymous.
- What do you think about censorship over the internet as a whole, not just blogging? Do you think that we will become more restricted in what we read and what we can say?
I feel that my freedom of speech was limited because Delta did NOT have a blogging policy. If they had had a policy that I had been made aware of, I could have self-censored. As it was, the company decided to take matters into its own hands and censor me by firing me.
- Do you see this as limiting peoples freedom of speech?