It is impossible to count all of the ways that social media has changed how we interact and communicate in the modern day. This evolution of the internet has had a massive impact on all areas of American culture.
One thing that it is now being linked to is the growing trend of sexual harassment claims in the workplace. It may help to spur those claims, either by giving employees an outlet for their complaints or by giving the perpetrators another way to harass their victims. After all, messages and pictures sent on social media could constitute harassment in many cases.
“Social media is another way employees complain about harassing behavior. Social media is involved in some aspect of each harassment complaint I’ve dealt with recently,” said one HR consultant. “And social media is not going anywhere. It’s now a facet of doing business.”
She is right that social media is not going away. It may change, shift and grow. Companies may try to monitor and even control the ways their employees use it. But the type of connectivity we have on the internet, for better or worse, is not going anywhere anytime soon.
The downside to this is that sexual harassment cases will continue to revolve around social media use. It will continue to raise concerns and make people feel victimized by their co-workers.
As such, it is as important now as ever for workers to understand all of the rights that they have. They need to know what steps to take when facing harassment and how to protect themselves.
