CIOs are responsible for helping establish and enforce a company's social media usage policies, but legal departments are called in when someone goes astray. With more employers allowing--or encouraging--their workers to use Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, companies are finding themselves in a variety of legal predicaments, The Wall Street Journal's Jeannette Borzo reports.

An employment termination case coming before a National Labor Relations Board judge this week is expected to shed some light on the legal framework around social media usage. The case involves a Connecticut medical transportation firm that fired an employee who had posted critical remarks about her boss on Facebook.

Lawyers warn that the possibilities for litigation involving the use of social media are vast. Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) was twice sued over posts that one of its attorneys made on a blog, and it ended up settling the suits for an undisclosed sum, Borzo reports.

"The intersection of social media and the office is a potential minefield," said Philip L. Gordon, the Denver-based chairman of the privacy and data-protection practice group at law firm Littler Mendelson PC.

For more:
- see Jeannette Borzo's article at The Wall Street Journal

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