Be Careful What You Put On Facebook

molerat

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-19712058

Loads of companies are taking a dim view of the use of social media although in this case it is possible that any member of the public could have posted the pictures and they seemingly did not contain really inappropriate images.

dizzyrascal

Well he is an idiot. Think about how the friends and family of the victims might have felt about the pictures. It does not matter that they did not contain images of the people who died.
Any member of the public could not have taken the pictures as the person who put them on facebook was cleaning up after the fatal accident. The public would not have got near to the scene.

1940sGal

He should have known better. Has he no sensitivity? Besides which he was there to do a job, which did not include taking photographs of the scene.

I agree with Dizzy, it's bad enough that people lost their lives, but for someone to take photos of the scene and upload them on to facebook is disgusting.

Decency and common sense would not have seen him in this position.

MattLFC

Just common sense tbh.

scrabbles_2

molerat wrote: »

Loads of companies are taking a dim view of the use of social media although in this case it is possible that any member of the public could have posted the pictures and they seemingly did not contain really inappropriate images.

I think a good many people would disagree with that...

PasturesNew

I was working for a photographer, that was called out by the papers to take photos of a local car accident/instant decapitation..... I had no idea there'd be internal car shots until I opened up the file .... blood everywhere. You can't unsee something.

Take_it_like_a_man,_sonny

PasturesNew wrote: »

I was working for a photographer, that was called out by the papers to take photos of a local car accident/instant decapitation..... I had no idea there'd be internal car shots until I opened up the file .... blood everywhere. You can't unsee something.

Yes, but these are not then freely distributed on some social site, but produced for a client for their records and investigations.

The Tow Truck driver was not commisioned to take photos and has rightly been dealt with.

Uncertain

From an employment point of view I have no doubt the employer has acted correctly. Clients are owed a duty of care and confidentiality in pretty much any situation and this was clearly breached.

In a wider sense society is tying itself in knotts about what photographs can and cannot be published. This is made all the more confusing as there is very little statute law to support the current interpretations.

It used to be very simple. With very few exceptions, if you could see it from a public place you could take a photograph and do what you like with it. You did not need the permission of any persons in the photo, in fact you were in a stronger position if you didn't ask them. The argument was simple, anybody standing in that public place would have seen first hand what the photograph showed so what was the difference?

Needless to say the boundaries where pushed by a few photographers beyond what most people would regard as acceptable. The trouble is no two people would draw the line at the same point. Now clever use of European human rights law is being used to create a right to privacy for the rich only as the costs are prohibitive to average person.

Is this really what we want? Think through the implications before having a knee jerk reaction to one nasty excess.

Rant over!

pompeyrich

Best advice is to be very careful, even the most innocent comments can be twisted. i once posted a work problem on here, next thing it had been printed out and even shown to HR.

The scenario, involving redundancies, coupled with my all too accurate user name made a colleague feel the need to publish my question. Luckily the question was based in general terms, no company names etc. however showed me what a small the world wide web can be.

faerie~spangles

The guy was an A£$e to take the images.

Deserves to be sacked.

If the law allows the families should sue him for all he's got.

Uncertain

faerie~spangles wrote: »

The guy was an A£$e to take the images.

Deserves to be sacked.

If the law allows the families should sue him for all he's got.

Maybe so but I don't think the law does allow.

Their claim, if any, would be against his employer but I can't see that they have a valid claim. You cannot libel the dead, your reputation dies with you as I imagine does any right to damages for invasion of privacy.