The legal frame of a social media policy
A corporate social media policy balances the interests of every party in the labour relationship: the lawful interests of the employer, the freedom of expression of the employee and the rights of third persons. This page explains which norms govern that balance and what must be reflected in the text of the policy.
A corporate social media policy in Georgia does not rest on a dedicated statute — it is alive only if built on three norms: the internal rules of labour as its legal form (Article 23), the attachment of those rules to the employment contract, which turns breach into a ground of liability (Article 47), and the purpose limitation that bounds the information collected about employees (Article 11). The United States case-law doctrine of protected "concerted activity" on social media does not exist in Georgian law — importing it into a policy text is a mistake.
The Form — Internal Rules of Labour
Article 23 gives the policy its lawful home: the employer has the right to establish internal rules of labour and is obliged to communicate them to the employees; it is a written document that may determine the working week and day, rest, the payment of remuneration, leave, the rules on protecting working conditions, types of incentives and liability, and the procedure for handling applications and complaints — and, taking into account the specifics of the work, special rules. A social media policy is exactly such a special rule. The decisive restriction sits in paragraph 6: a provision of the internal rules that contravenes the law, the individual or the collective agreement is void — the policy draft must be balanced against that boundary from the outset.
The Liability Chain — Article 47
A rule as text means nothing without an enforcement mechanism, and that mechanism is Article 47: among the grounds for termination of an employment contract are the employee's gross breach of an obligation imposed by the contract, the collective agreement and/or the internal rules of labour, and likewise such a breach where a disciplinary measure has already been applied within the last 1 year. But paragraph 2 sets an exact condition: a breach of an obligation imposed by the internal rules becomes a ground of termination only where the internal rules are a part of the employment contract. The enforceability of a social media policy stands precisely on this attachment: the rules must either be declared part of the contract or be referenced in it, so that every employee knows the document that governs their postings.