This is the age of the Internet. Every year, millions of new users connect to the Internet through PCs, laptops and smartphones. The number of websites grows double each year. Facebook is one of the main social media sites on the Internet. This website has more than 500 million members from all over the world. Now, let us get to the point. We are going to explain how social media sites can play a role in sexual harassment. Read on to find out more.
Employers, for the most part, train their workers and employers to enable them to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace. So, they educate employees about what type of behaviors come under the umbrella of harassment. Social networking should also be included in the list of places where such incidents can happen. This is because most employees are friends on Facebook and communicate with one another on the same site. As time goes by, such incidents are increasing on these sites.
When a worker or employee makes use of a social media website, they may feel that they are communicating through a private channel. Though the work of Internet is somewhat different from our physical work, yet the messages posted on these sites are shared with hundreds and thousands of users. For example, when an employee makes a sexual comment about his colleague on Facebook, hundreds if not thousands of other workers may see this comment because a shared comment can be seen by all the friends on the list of the sharer. So, the message can cause embarrassment to the person about whom the comment is made.
As said earlier, almost everyone nowadays uses social media sites, such as Facebook. So the employee about whom the comment is made on Facebook is most likely to see it. He or she certainly will not like to read such a bad thing about him or self. There is no need to mention the other employees who will read that comment will also get offended. Unlike a verbal comment, which is overhead by a few people, a sexual comment made on a social media site is read by thousands of people within a few minutes. So, preventive steps should be taken in order to decrease the number of sexual nature comments made on these sites.
The number of sexual harassment incidents, such as cyber-stalking and other sexual advances is also on the rise on social media sites. In the eyes of employees, these sites may not cause much harm to the reputation of other employees. But the fact is harassment on these sites is increasing the number of claims made each year.
In the near future, the court will start hearing several harassment claims due to comments made on social media sites. There is still a need to determine which behaviors are legal and which are illegal. But one thing is sure; the potential for lawsuits is very high. So, you should protect your Sacramento company employees from sexual harassment incidents by training them on cyber harassment.