What was most interesting to me, was the discussion and difference of opinion on whether social media spaces like YouTube, Twitter and Facebook are publishing or conversation. Damien Damjanovski was a conversationalist; Sam North was of the opinion that as soon as you put something online you are publishing, and by entering the public domain you are availing yourself to be quoted, scrutinised, sued for defamation and have your Facebook photos printed in the Sydney morning Herald. Renai LeMay from Delimiter was a journalist trying to toe the publishing and ethics line. While he would freely quote a public figure’s tweet in an article he would only use an image found online if it was published under creative commons. He added that a journalist should go to the primary source of material they are using to verify its accuracy if nothing else. So at this point in the night the debate became one based on the premise that if we are putting ourselves out there publicly how can this content be used and how do we feel about that use (and vulnerability).

I side with the publishing angle myself and by that I mean that posting something online is a form of publication by its inherent distribution. Having said (and contradicting) that, I feel it is completely inappropriate for a newspaper to obtain a photograph from a social network because that photograph is from an entirely different context to the story. Who is the publisher? This was not explored in tonight’s discussion at the event but it did get me thinking. Part of the reason why the likes of Facebook and Tumblr claim copyright on your material is so that they can have the right to distribute your material which is what they are doing when you post content to them. While I think it is wrong of newspapers to delve into Facebook for pictures to illustrate their stories I think that the users of these platforms should take issue with Facebook as much as they may take issue with the journalist and the newspaper. Surely it is Facebook’s responsibility to protect its copyright as a means to protect its users. What should users expect of the social networks they participate in?

I could go on but I think the debate will continue at the next Digital Citizens event.

N.B. The hashtag for this event was #digicitz. The title of this post is paraphrased from a tweet on that stream.

an employee’s work-identified posts fell somewhere between their little black book and the firm’s email database … they should belong to the company … so a worker could not take all the followers they had built up using the firm’s identity to a competitor.

Click for a larger image.

Tim Burrowes, co-owner and editor cited this example:

“With Rove, he has got loads of followers and when he leaves Ten they’ll all go with him”

I’m not sure this is the best example that Burrowes could have used.  Rove has his own production company and his content is licensed to Ten.

Any employee who feels that they are under surveillance will soon become uncomfortable. What this policy fails to acknowledge is the enormous benefit an employee can bring to his or her company through a contribution to an online community.

A company has every right to protect their client list and their intellectual property. However, there are too many implications to cut a hard and fast rule of ownership of a tweet:

• What if you created your twitter profile before joining the company?
• What if you already had a significant following before joining the company?
• What if the company hired you, in part for your network of followers?
• What if your tweets, work to increase the profile of the company?

Being protective of company IP is one thing, but owning conversation and commentary  is surely another. Could a company lay claim to blog comments? Forum contributions? Facebook status updates?

Focal Attractions is in the business of running social media workshops and seminars for companies. They want to be viewed as leaders in this space, hence the motivation for this PR piece. Paranoid companies would be far better advised to not allow employees to tweet during work time, or to tweet from a company twitter account, attributed to a company email address.

Companies can always set guidelines for twitter use. I can only see a policy of ownership as a way to kill morale. Does your company want employees who just do their job; or, do they prefer ambassadors who demonstrate pride, knowledge and pleasure in their work through their online networks?

Would you want to work for a company that claims ownership of your tweets?