Marcos L.

Lerona

19 years old
Male

Facebook, Twitter and Instagram also known as social networking sites

is a public website. Anything published on it can be seen by anyone who has
an access to the profile of the account holder. Social networking sites is
indeed a great tool of communication. Facebook and all other social
networking sites aids communication barrier between people who are million
miles away from each other. It helps in reconnecting people who have lost
contacts with one another long before, build new friendship and relationship.
It also aids fast transmission of information through the snowballing effect in
the internet by clicking the share buttons. It assists in educating our society
with socio-political, socio-economic, and socio-cultural phenomena in the
world through related advertisements and pages. It helps us to express our
opinions, to be heard and to generate a bigger audience. We can posts
whatever we want in the social media platforms, exercise our freedom of
speech, expression, and of the press. However we should not exploit this
freedom to the point that it backfires at us. As the saying goes, too much
kills. We should be aware and conscientious enough to be prudent in what
we are going to type in our computer, smartphones, and android phones
before we hit the share or post button of our social networking accounts. Our
imprudent posts could destroy emotional, psychological, and mental welfare
of other people, may destroy peace and harmony, and it may also lead to our
self-destruction.
In my opinion I absolutely agree that comments or posts must be in
private. As a student it is necessary to privatize what a person posts or
comments in social media. Especially if a particular post or comment is
malicious to the consciousness of the reader, especially with children ages
eight to sixteen years old because at this age they are on the Consciousness
stage and they wanted to know how, explore, and experience what they see
and hear. And if the words can be viewed by the public, then it's not private
anymore and can possibly cause influence or have an impact to the readers.
And if one say something that could offend certain cultures or groups of
people, it would make him or her look bad. An example is what happened to
Jed Madela, a Filipino recording artist whove got involved to the tweet issue
about tweeting bunch of monkeys who he refers to people in Cagayan de
Oro. His tweet caught the attention of many Netizens and they also
speculate that the tweet of Jed is referring to the audience in Cagayan de
Oro where he is one of the guest singer in the concert held there. For his
harsh post in twitter Jed learned his lesson and apologized for his truly
misunderstood post of his. As we can see in my example above Facebook,

Twitter, and Instagram has brought so many bad things to this generation.
People should watch their words, pay more attention, and be responsible to
what they are saying in any case.
We expect that anything shared, commented, tweeted, and posted on
social media might be viewed by the world so you should think before you
write it and be extra careful on what will you say because at the end of the
day you should be able to accept the effects of it in the future and face the
consequence for your imprudence. Because in this scenario we should
expect the worst to come like misunderstanding between the publisher and
the reader. What the publisher may mean is differently to what the readers
mean. Second scenario is it will greatly affect your character and lastly it can
cause fear to you and to your family; we dont want this to happen that we
will be afraid to go out and afraid for the safety of our family. Good example
for this is the trending college student girl named Paula Jamie Amalayer
Salvosa become worldwide trending because of her video shouting at a lady
guard assigned in Light Rail Transit Authority Santolan station. People
around her took a video of Paula raising her voice to the lady guard. People
judged Paula because of an abrupt emotions over the LRT situation. After the
incident, Paulas social networking accounts were stormed by other Netizens
- posting rude and emotionally, psychologically destructive comments. The
effect on what happened to Paula had a great impact to her. She did not
attend her school because she is being judge and bullied by the people she
meet in the same way. In my own opinion the root cause of the problem
between Paula and the lady guard is all about misunderstanding, improper
use of words and disrespect with one another. That is why we should always
watch our words and always show respect. This is the only key to understand
each other so that misunderstanding will not occur. And if you have nothing
good to say just keep it to yourself especially if you know many people or the
world will see it. And if it is an important message it is much better to send it
directly to the person concerned because it is more formal, sincere, and
privacy-wise.
Being in a democratic country, freedom of speech, expression and of
the press is a common right that Filipinos are exercising and enjoying. While
everyone should be careful and mindful of what they post or publish online, a
sarcastic opinion on Facebook status and/or other social media platforms
should not be a ground for dismissal of an employee. A mere distaste of the
boss based on his personal preference on statuses or posts of an employee is
not a meritable ground for an employees dismissal. These disagreements
could be kept personal and should be communicated in the right avenues
such as during personal times together outside the work sphere. Not only
this practice of using the right avenues to talk about personal disputes will

promote common peace, it will also generate camaraderie, and foster a

working environment that has industrial peace.
Though freedom of speech, expression, and of the press is a basic right
which promotes individual and national growth, it has limitations. A person
who published words in the social media platforms that generates emotional,
mental and psychological anguish to juridical and natural persons may be
held liable for libelous activities. In work setting, companies or institutions
promulgates their own rules and regulations which usually includes behavior
and proper conduct. Companies or institutions may include libelous activities
as one of the grave misconducts which may be a ground for dismissal - a
company practice which is in congruence with Philippine Labor Code Art.
282a which reads,
"An employer may terminate an employment for any of the following
causes:
a. Serious misconduct or willful disobedience by the employee of the
lawful orders of his employer or representative in connection with
his work"
In the case of Fujitsu Computer Products Corporation of the Philippines v.
Court of Appeals, in the courts decision, it has set a parameter for
misconduct to be a just cause for dismissal which are as follows:
"1.) It must be serious;
2.)
It must relate to the performance of the employees duties; and
3.)
It must show that the employee has become unfit to continue
working for the employer."
If the above mentioned grounds were met, the employee who committed
such grave an offense may be duly dismissed.
To end this paper, let us summarize the lessons that this paper imparts to
us. It is important that we compartmentalize our life i.e. separate matters
that should be kept confidential or private from matters that could be shared
to friends or to public, separate our personal matters from professional
matters, etc. As long as our personal concerns seldom touch the boundaries
of our professional concerns, there will be less mess in our lives. We will be
able to function with integrity, serve our purpose, and commit to our
obligations personally and professionally. Whenever we have problems or
concerns that needs to be addressed, we must make an effort to stop and
reflect if we are going to post and share our sentiments on public or shall we
keep it to ourselves and to people who are concerned. Whenever we have
professional concerns that needs remedy, it would be better if we are going
to take the concerns to the management that may help us take the right
actions towards our problems. We must learn how to control ourselves from

typing in words in the keyboard or keypads of our PC, smartphones, or

android phones to destroy peace, harmony, and good quality of relationship
just for the sake of expressing our selfish personal sentiments. Freedom of
speech, of expression, and of the press is a gift that we should treasure. We
must use it to improve our individual and national wellbeing by raising ideas,
and socio-political, socio-economic, and socio-cultural sentiments. We should
stop exploiting our freedom to speak, to express, and of the press. We should
learn how to use social media platforms on our advantage and not on our
destruction.