NASHVILLE, Tenn.—While it's essential that organizations have social media policies, train employees on those policies, and enforce the policies, the effort is complicated by the ongoing evolution of social media and technology, according to one expert on legal issues surrounding social media.

Speaking Monday at the annual conference of the Public Risk Management Assn. in Nashville, Tenn., Charles Leitch, principal at Patterson Buchanan Fobes Leitch & Kalzer Inc. P.S. in Seattle said, “There are no easy answers and that's the problem with social media. It's totally in flux right now and it's not going to stop being in flux because technology is a tsunami that never breaks.”

“There are a lot of legal exposures right now in social media, but they are evolving,” Mr. Leitch said, citing exposures in such areas as civil rights, defamation, invasion of privacy, negligence, consumer protection, discrimination and federal Stored Communications Act exposures. “And the reality is exposure channels are evolving because social media are evolving,” he said.

Two areas where entities are routinely getting in trouble with social media, Mr. Leitch said, are overbroad restrictions on employees' discussions of various topics and unlawful discharge or discipline of employees over social media posts.

He recommended that entities not get “overzealous” in regulating staff's use of social networking sites. Under the First Amendment, “I'm allowed to go home from work and say I hate my job. I can put it anywhere I want,” Mr. Leitch said. “I can put it on Facebook and it doesn't change that.”

He also suggested that social media policies should not reflect “unrealistic expectations” of people's online behavior. “People can do stupid things,” Mr. Leitch said.

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And Mr. Leitch told session attendees that if organizations are using social media as part of their hiring process “you have to be judicious.”

scalable so they can adapt to future change, Mr. Leitch said. “When we talk about social media a year from now, it's going to be different than it is now,” he said.

“We know some questions in an interview are improper” such as asking about race, national origin or religion; age; family genetics; or pregnancy, orientation or political views, he said. The same should be considered to apply to information gathered about job applicants through social media searches, Mr. Leitch said.

He noted that courts have yet to address how civil rights are applied to electronic devices. But, Mr. Leitch said, “You don't want case law, you want to be smart and use common sense as you approach these issues.”

Social media policies also must address social media as a potential data breach access point, Mr. Leitch said.

Given the ongoing evolution of social media, it's important to keep social media policies flexible and scalable so they can adapt to future change, Mr. Leitch said. “When we talk about social media a year from now, it’s going to be different than it is now,” he said.