Unfriending on FaceBook = Workplace Bullying?

[mjr]

Really? Really? Really?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...nal-finds.html

I guess this is yet another reason I don't have FaceBook.

[HYHYBT]

According to the linked article, it was not the unfriending in itself, but the larger pattern of hostility over a long period.

[s_stabeler]

It's not the act of unfriending someone in and of itself that is bullying. However, take a hypothetical situation- a workplace has everybody friends on facebook, and as such, information needed for work is often exchanged via facebook- say, meeting information. Then, someone is unfriended by everyone, and can no longer get the information they need without begging someone else for it. that would be bullying, because you are excluding that person from the group arbitrarily. (in short, the bullying isn't the unfriending itself, but when someone is deliberately excluded from the group no matter what they do.)

edit- indeed, in the very article linked, legal experts said the decision did not mean it was automatically workplace bullying- just that facebook unfriending can, in combination with other evidence, be evidence that bullying is occurring. Remember that bullying is rarely (if ever) tyhe usual stereotype of a biug kid betaing up little kids for their lunch moey- it is often a pattern of behaviour designed to e too small for teachers to pay attention to that makes someone's life miserable. Each individual part is petty- however, the whole is distinctly not.

[TheHuckster]

It's not the act of unfriending someone in and of itself that is bullying. However, take a hypothetical situation- a workplace has everybody friends on facebook, and as such, information needed for work is often exchanged via facebook- say, meeting information.

That's a horrible way to run a business. No employer should use anyone's personal internet accounts for communication. That's what work emails and internal communication platforms like Sharepoint and Basecamp are for. Not to mention apt for disaster after someone mistakenly discloses NDA info on their Facebook feed because of a forgotten privacy setting on the post.

According to the linked article, it was not the unfriending in itself, but the larger pattern of hostility over a long period.

Yes, it's another example of a horribly worded and embellishing click-bait headline with a very minor aside mention in the end that everything they said up to that point was hyperbole. I really can't stand the ever increasing trends of that in journalism.

[HYHYBT]

That's a horrible way to run a business. No employer should use anyone's personal internet accounts for communication.

Using Facebook that way would be a bad idea, but for many businesses, especially smaller ones, there's no reason not to just collect employees' existing email addresses.

[wolfie]

Using employees' personal e-mail accounts for business communication is bad for a couple of reasons. From a security viewpoint, what happens when someone is fired? If the company were using corporate e-mail accounts, IT could lock them out of the account before HR gives them the bad news, so the ex-employee wouldn't have access to the (potentially confidential) company e-mails in their account. The company CAN'T lock them out of their personal account, so they'd still have access to the business e-mails that they had been sent.

Also, there's the issue of fairness. You want me to use an e-mail account for business? Don't expect ME to pay the tab.

[s_stabeler]

while its' true that it's a horrible way to run a business, it was supposed to be an example of how unfriending someone on facebook can be evidence that someone is being systematically excluded from a group- which, depending on the context, CAN be bullying. ( basically, deliberately excluding a co-worker from being "part of the team" probably IS bullying. If everyone at work are facebook friends, then unfriending someone MAY be bullyng, since it dets that person apart from the rest of the group.)

[Greenday]

Also, there's the issue of fairness. You want me to use an e-mail account for business? Don't expect ME to pay the tab.

Pretty sure you could just create a gmail or yahoo or hotmail account for free so there's really no tab.

As for the main issue at hand, this is pretty ridiculous all around. Besides the way the company is run which is dumb as hell, there's so much wrong. Being unfriended is not bullying. It means the person doesn't want to talk or hear from you. That's a part of life. Bullying would be getting everyone else to block her as a group. Plus you can message people who aren't friends. And if the person completely blocks you, go to your boss instead of crying to the courts about it. It's the very definition of immaturity.

[s_stabeler]

Pretty sure you could just create a gmail or yahoo or hotmail account for free so there's really no tab.

As for the main issue at hand, this is pretty ridiculous all around. Besides the way the company is run which is dumb as hell, there's so much wrong. Being unfriended is not bullying. It means the person doesn't want to talk or hear from you. That's a part of life. Bullying would be getting everyone else to block her as a group. Plus you can message people who aren't friends. And if the person completely blocks you, go to your boss instead of crying to the courts about it. It's the very definition of immaturity.

yes and no. first, to repeat, the unfriending was PART of the bullying- and indeed, a very minor part. also, how do you know she hasn't TRIED taking it to the boss, and the boss didn't brush her off with exactly the same attitude shown by your post, Greenday. Yes, unfrienmding someone is petty, rtaher than bullying in and of itself. BULLYING IS ALMOST ALWAYS A SERIES OF PETTY INCIDENTS THAT BUILD UP TO MAKE LIFE MISERABLE FOR THE TARGET.The issue is NOT that the woman in the article was unfriended. The issue is that the woman was treated like a little kid- note that the actual main issue in the linked article was being called a "naughty little schoolgirl running to the teacher"- amongst other behaviour, like (apparently) saying hello and goodbye to everyone but the victim ( again, trying to exclude the women from the group) and delivering photocopies to everyone except the woman (it's not specified of what- however, considering that the woman could presumably collect her own photocopies if she was making them, then it implies that information Ms Roberts needed to do her job was being withheld- which IS bullying, pure and simple in and of itself.Even if not, then again, it's excluding ms Roberts from the group.)

Also, bear in mind that Ms Roberts may well have felt that the Agency Principal (the boss in question) was condoning the bullying- and/or she may well have already tried talking to him about it. It was his wife who was conducting the campaign of bullying, and it was a result of a complaint made to him. (she may well have believed he was allowing the bullying as retaliation for a complaint she made)- if she felt sch, then the appropriate response IS to complain to the tribunal. (Especially since employment tribunals can be a little bit odd at times- I am aware of a case where an employment tribunal agreed that someone had been treated unfairly (it was basically a constructive dismissal case) to an extent that it was illegal, but because the person had quit the job in question, the case was ruled in favour of the company. ( aka, a constructive dismissal case was ruled in favour of the company because it actually succeeded)

I'm sorry if I seem angry with the caps-lock earlier in my post, but I suffered bullying for more than 7 years, and it was dismissed as unimportant stuff. As such, i get angry when people claim a clear case of bullying is dismissed like Greenday did.

[TheHuckster]

while its' true that it's a horrible way to run a business, it was supposed to be an example of how unfriending someone on facebook can be evidence that someone is being systematically excluded from a group- which, depending on the context, CAN be bullying. ( basically, deliberately excluding a co-worker from being "part of the team" probably IS bullying. If everyone at work are facebook friends, then unfriending someone MAY be bullyng, since it dets that person apart from the rest of the group.)

It's a strawman example, though. I don't think that's what's happening in the article in question.

While we're dealing with hypotheticals, if someone is ostracized from a group, it could very well be that person who is at fault. I've known plenty of people who alienate themselves from a group, and then wonder why nobody would be their friend. And, sometimes it's even the black sheep in the group who is the bully and not the other way around. I should be able to do whatever the hell I want with my own Facebook friends list, regardless of the circumstances.

If there's other behavior and actions that constitute bullying, then let them speak for themselves, as that alone should warrant legal action. The fact I don't have them in my social media friends list shouldn't make a difference in any of that.

[s_stabeler]

the issue wasn't exactly that they weren't friends, but that the bully wouldn't even interact with the victim in a professional capacity- for example, one of the behaviours highlighted in the linked article was that the bully would deliver photocopies to everyone except the victim. (and the victim is indeed not necessarily blameless- this was apparently triggered by a complaint that the properties the victim was responsible for selling weren't being given the same prominence as other properties, which may or may not be a petty complaint itself)

so yes, someone not treating someone else as a friend is not bullying- it's why I always roll my eyes at a kid getting into trouble for not inviting everyone in class to their birthday party when they give out invitations at school (especially when the usual result is the bullies ruining the party- yes, I speak from experience.)- however, you need to treat them like you would any other co-worker. ( basically, interact with them only on a professional basis, fine, but don't treat them as if they don't exist at all)

[TheHuckster]

Yes, I think we're both saying the same exact thing. All I'm saying is if there's issues with treating a coworker in a professional way, especially if they are impeding them from achieving the tasks they require to do their job well, then that's what needs to be brought up in the complaint. The unfriending of them on Facebook is irrelevant to the case, because it doesn't cause a professional/workplace issue but rather a personal issue.

[s_stabeler]

it's more showing a pattern of behaviour. ( basically, bullying is deliberately making someone else's life miserable. It doesn't have to impact someone's job. ( basically, what made it bullying was that the bully was making it a case of "my co-workers and X" when X should have been treated as a co-worker. Had she treated the victim as a disliked co-worker, she would have been fine.))

or, to put it simply: the facebook unfriending is put in to illustrate that the bully was acting to try to isolate their victim, not as something that is itself bullying.