‘Indian media company drastically restricts social media freedom for employees’
India’s largest media company is forcing its journalists to create company-sanctioned Facebook and Twitter accounts. The company may automatically place links on those accounts.
Journalists from the BCCL company, which publishes the Times of India and the Economic Times, among others, are still allowed to maintain private accounts on social media, but they are not allowed to post news links on them. They are allowed to do this on a ‘business’ account that they are obliged to create, but they must share the login details of that account with their employer. According to Quartz, journalists from the company have been given a contract that they must sign and in which they promise to do so.
He may then freely post links on his employee’s Twitter and Facebook account, even if he resigns, Quartz claims. Employees can also choose to convert their private account to a business account, but they should keep in mind that the copyright of all their posts then rests with BCCL.
BCCL recently bought the rights to publish a local Indian version of a number of international websites such as Gizmodo, Lifehacker, Business Insider and the Hufftingon Post. It is unknown whether journalists covered by the Indian versions of those titles will also have to deal with the strict social media policy.