Social Media and Workers’ Rights: What Is at Stake?

Abstract

This article addresses the way in which the growing use of social media is changing the employment relationship. Technology has given rise to a huge increase in the amount of information about employees available to employers, while allowing them to engage in invasive monitoring of employee access to the internet and social media. This highlights the importance of regulatory techniques, as employees have become more exposed to monitoring by the employer and potentially to discrimination. In certain cases, the employee’s freedom of expression is at risk. To counteract these tendencies, privacy laws, recently reinforced in the EU by the General Data Protection Regulation or GDPR, and more generally the principle of proportionality, can represent effective instruments to prevent technology from exacerbating the condition of subordination of employees.