Wisconsin IAFF Local President Fired Over Social Media Post

The president of a Wisconsin International Association of Firefighters local was terminated last week over a social media post that criticized understaffing over the Memorial Day weekend. Spencer Nett, president of IAFF Local 5026, was terminated by the Dells-Delton EMS Commission on August 4, 2022.

Court of Appeals Strikes Down Palm Beach County Social Media Policy

The US 11th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a social media-related First Amendment lawsuit filed by two Palm Beach County fire captains may proceed, reversing a district court ruling from 2020. In doing so the court struck down the fire department’s social media policy as being a prior restraint on employee speech.

Palm Beach County Social Media Policy and Discipline Upheld

A lawsuit challenging the validity of Palm Beach County Fire Rescue’s social media policy, together with the discipline imposed on two captains, has been dismissed for the second time. Captain AJ O’Laughlin and Captain Crystal Little filed suit in state court last year claiming their social media-related discipline should be overturned, and that the social media policy violated the First Amendment.

Social Media in a Volunteer Department

Today’s Burning Question: Our volunteer fire department has our own Facebook page and the fire-police have a page they created on their own. Please correct me if I am wrong, but doesn’t the Facebook page belong to the creators, not the fire department? In other words, the fire department cannot make the fire-police get rid of the page, can they?

California Fire Chief Terminated Over Comments

The past few weeks have seen unprecedented numbers of firefighters in the headlines over comments posted in social media related to race relations. Sometimes we get so accustomed to speech-related discipline being associated with social media posts, that we forget that non-social-media-related speech can be just as problematic. And so it was with Manhattan Beach Fire Chief Daryn Drum.

Nashville District Chief is the Latest Cybercasualty

A Nashville district chief is under investigation over Facebook posts he made that the department leadership characterized as “racial, stereotypical, and threatening toward members of the public.”

Florida Firefighters Get Reprieve on Strict Social Media Policy

Many fire departments are struggling with how to deal with the social media and digital imagery problems that so often have made headlines. Some departments have adopted strict policies, some have adopted more flexible policies, and some have buried their ...

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