Anonymous complaint over tweets

[OliverJames]

Good afternoon Beagles,

I have received a meeting invite to discuss an anonymous complaint that my employer received because of some activity on my personal Twitter account. I have seen the tweets that it relates to (all 25 of them!) and although a couple are explicit and offensive, none of them brings the business into it, our clients, partners or colleagues. There is ABSOLUTELY no way that anyone would be able to link my Twitter profile to my employer in any way, shape or form.

I know who has done this and they even gave me a heads up (hindsight is a great thing) that they were going to do it but in a VERY cryptic fashion. I know now only because I am replaying a conversation that we had.

From a disciplinary perspective is there anything that I need to consider before Monday's meeting to stop it progressing?

The social media policy does state the following;

The policy applies if you refer to COMPANY NAME, its services or products, people, clients, competitors or other related individuals or businesses, whilst using a social media platform in a personal/non-work or business/work-related capacity.

And although a few of the tweets use the term "my employer" or "my colleague" it NEVER mentions names or business names.

Any advice would be welcome.

Regards

OJ

[ULA]

Is your twitter username in any way identifiable as you?

If it is then possibly the company may take the view that if people can work out who you are and they know you then they might know who your employer is.

[OliverJames]

Is your Twitter username in any way identifiable as you?

If it is then possibly the company may take the view that if people can work out who you are and they know you then they might know who your employer is.

No, although the Twitter account has the name Ollie in it, it in no way would connect back to me. Over 20,000 people are called Oliver, and although there is a photograph of me as the profile picture, I'm not wearing a uniform, it has a black background and is quite close up so nothing overly identifiable. Even so, that would not identify me as an employee of the business in any way.

The person who has done this knows me personally knows where I work and has gone direct to the business. There is ABSOLUTELY no way they could know where I work otherwise, and let alone my seniority there.

I just want to make sure i know my legal position with the company before my "informal" meeting (albeit with someone from HR included in the meeting) so that i know how to play it.

Thanks for the speedy reply, Ula!

[ULA]

Appreciate what you say, however in the spirit of preparing you for the meeting your account has a profile picutre of you? So you need to be able to deal with any questioning around people knowing you personally and who also now where you work and who follow you on Twitter would therefore know the company you were referring to in those few tweets.

You also need to keep in mind the policy and that you have not in any of your tweets mentioned the "COMPANY NAME, its services or products, people, clients, competitors or other related individuals or businesses...."