If you live in some parts of the United States and have a Facebook or Twitter account, today should be a great day. Today, laws in two states that will help protect social networking accounts go into effect.
Reuters reports that new 2013 laws in California and Illinois will keep employers from requesting that they gain access to the passwords of their employees" social networking accounts. The state of Michigan passed a similar law in December that went into effect immediately after it was signed by its governor. Maryland put its own version of those laws into place earlier last year.
These new laws seem to be a growing trend among state lawmakers who want to protect employees who may fear that their Facebook and Twitter accounts could be monitored by their bosses. Companies have fired employees in the past for posts on Facebook that are visible to the general public.
While more states are making a decision to put social networking privacy laws into effect, a bill to amend FCC regulations would have done the same thing at the federal level was defeated in a vote by the U.S.Senate earlier in 2012.
Source: Reuters | Image via Facebook