[getting fired over facebook use]

From The Age:

"About three weeks ago, Roseanna Brisbane, after a long day doing casual work for a Queensland Government agency, updated her Facebook status saying that in future she would be "saying no to working for shitty Government departments".

She did not name the department or any individuals in her message but a colleague and Facebook friend saw the update and passed it on to her boss. She was promptly "escorted out of the building" on her next day back at work.

She said she was a casual so had few options in terms of unfair dismissal claims.

Brisbane, 20, believed she was targeted because of a back injury she obtained at work that restricted her productivity.

Her mother, Jillian, said she could understand critics who say people should be careful about what they publish online. But young people saw Facebook as their main tool for communicating privately with friends and did not expect their bosses to be spying on them.

"It is becoming the Soviet state type thing where you're scared of talking to someone in case they go and tell someone else," she said.

[...]

Another reader, Bummer, was fired from his job on his first day over Facebook comments he made regarding the company's long recruitment process. He did not mention the company name and expected the comments were private but later found out he was not using the correct Facebook privacy settings.

"I don't agree that employers should use social networking tools to learn more about their employees as most people's 'social' personality and 'work' personality are vastly different. I definitely learned the hard way," the reader said.

[...]

Last week this website reported several other examples of Australians being sacked or disciplined over seemingly innocuous online posts, including the case of a man who says he was fired from his job at a "large corporate bank" for using the word "recession" in his Facebook profile.

Furthermore, the NSW Department of Corrective Services is threatening to sack prison officers over posts they made to a Facebook group criticising the cash-strapped State Government's plans to privatise Parklea and Cessnock prisons."