News - These WhatsApp messages can cost you your job or worse in South Africa

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These WhatsApp messages can cost you your job or worse in South Africa

Source By Myles Illidge
5 days ago

WhatsApp is a valuable tool for business and casual conversations, but individuals must be careful about their activity on the social media platform, as it could land them in trouble with their employer or law enforcement.According to Nombuso Ndlovu, an industrial relations consultant at Strata-g Labour Solutions, messages that leak confidential information or share explicit content with staff or work WhatsApp groups could get people fired.Speaking to CapeTalk, Ndlovu said employers must have a policy in place that staff must agree to when they are required to conduct business over WhatsApp on their personal phones.“If there is a requirement for the use of WhatsApp for work-related information on a personal device, then it must be made known to the employee; there must be a policy in place,” she said.“In the absence of a tool of trade provided by the employer, then policies and rules must be put in place, and those must be made known to employees.”She added that employers have the right to monitor work-related conversations on devices that they have provided to employees. However, doing so on a personal device would be a privacy violation.Ndlovu advises employees who are required to use WhatsApp for work purposes to be very aware of how they conduct themselves on the social media platform.“Make sure that it still remains professional while avoiding or minimising the risk of potential exposure or exposure of confidential information or information that is not supposed to be shared being leaked out,” she said.She explained that sharing explicit content in work or staff WhatsApp groups can be considered serious misconduct, resulting in disciplinary action and, ultimately, dismissal.“Recent articles have been written where employees have been dismissed for sharing explicit information in a staff group or work group,” said Ndlovu.“So there’s a standard of accountability and professionalism that is expected from an employee, especially when communicating on a workplace platform.”Ndlovu also said posting a WhatsApp status of yourself attending a social function while on sick leave could have severe professional consequences.“There is a practical example I’ve actually recently dealt with where an employee posted themselves at a function whereas they had submitted a medical certificate stating they were off sick or booked off incapacitated,” she explained.“So, that is a violation of a rule because what the employee has done is they’ve misconducted themselves by being dishonest. That is an example where an employer can take disciplinary action.”Depending on the severity of the offence and how the organisation views it, disciplinary action may result in an employee’s dismissal.

Other messages that can land you in jail

In May 2024, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed the Preventing and Combating of Hate Crimes and Hate Speech Bill into law, making sending hate speech over WhatsApp and other social media platforms a criminal offence.South Africa first introduced the bill in 2018. It states that offences constitute hate crimes where the offender is driven to do so by prejudice towards a victim due to specific or perceived characteristics such as race, gender, sex, religion, and liability, among other things.At the same time, it defines hate speech as intentionally publishing material that can provoke or promote hate.While the definitions differ, both relate to specific or perceived characteristics, of which the bill provides an extensive list, quoted below.Age, albinism, birth, colour, culture, disability, ethnic or social origin, gender or gender identity, HIV status, language, nationality and migrant or refugee status, occupation or trade, political affiliation or conviction, race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation.Hate speech can take the form of any written, illustrated, visual display, utterance, representation or reference, or electronic communication.Therefore, this includes hate speech posted on social media and shared via WhatsApp.The law makes it an offence when speech material is intentionally distributed or made available in electronic communication, and the said person knows that such electronic communication constitutes hate speech,” The Presidency said.Regarding punishment for such offences, the bill states that convicted individuals could face a fine, imprisonment not exceeding five years, or a combination of both.A subsequent conviction will land them another fine, imprisonment of up to five years, or a combination of the two.However, the bill specifies that these hate speech laws don’t apply to anything done in good faith, such as:

artistic creativity, performance, or other form of expression;
academic or scientific inquiry;
fair and accurate reporting or commentary in the public interest; and,
Interpretation and proselytising or espousing of any religious conviction, tenet, belief, teaching, doctrine or writing.