Believe it or not, there was once a time before the Internet. A time when your private thoughts weren’t a public display. A time when complaints about your job were uttered under the friendly confines of the cubicle. A time when conversations were only recorded into the memories of those within earshot. But those days are gone.

Today, information flows freely through the channels of social media. Employees can complain about their jobs at the click of a mouse. People are able to post pictures and opinions of what can sometimes be of an obscene or embarrassing nature. Technology exposes us, making our lives more public, and therefore more susceptible to speculation, like never before.

And the consequences are now being seen in the workplace, as people are being fired for Internet conduct while off the clock. This has ultimately led to increased controversy in the professional world because the lines between the public and private sphere have become increasingly blurred. Which raises the question: does an employer’s aim to foster a productive and safe environment trump the employee’s privacy interests? Or, put the other way, should society intervene, and if so, what legal steps (i.e. Lifestyle Discrimination Laws) can be taken to keep employers from making hiring, promotion, discharge, discipline and other job decisions based on off-the-job conduct? With graduation upon us, these questions become increasingly important for those about to lose their long-held title of ‘student’ and hopefully earn the title of ‘employee.’

Five U.S. states (California, Colorado, Connecticut, New York, and North Dakota) have already taken legal steps to protect employees off duty behavior. But in fact, the statutes they have enacted are have largely proved inefficient. Colorado’s statute states, “employers cannot fire for “lawful activity off the premises of the employer during nonworking hours.” New York opted for more specificity by “protecting employees from adverse employment consequences for legal recreation activities outside work hours, off of the employer’s premises and without the use of the employer’s equipment or other property.” This sounds great for the employee in theory, but most of the five states make exceptions, indicating that an employer can discipline off duty conduct if it creates a conflict of interest or directly relates to employment activities. Many court cases have even ended up granting employers a great deal of discretion. So based on t hese precedents, it seems that adopting a Lifestyle Discrimination laws or similar statutes leads to more questions and doesn’t even address the issues it attempts to solve.

So while these statues and various form of discrimination laws might seem amiable, they have often been counterintuitive. But more importantly, Lifestyle Discrimination laws ignore one of the primary concerns of the employer: the aim to foster a productive and safe environment. The government should not pass laws that tell an employer who they should and should not retain. If an employee is not serving as a respectable ambassador, the employer should have every right to fire them. Because who would want to hire or work with someone who has nothing but bad things to say?

Take Ashley Johnson, for example, a waitress at Brixx restaurant in Charleston, South Carolina. She was fired after she used profanity and called a customer “cheap” on her Facebook wall, simple because she was displeased with the tip. The co-owner of the restaurant said that Johnson “violated company policy” and the restaurant “definitely cares about what people say about their customers.” Johnson’s actions were undoubtedly legal, and also performed on her own time, but this scenario brings into question Johnson’s integrity as an employee.

Another scenario deals with a woman who called in sick to work because she was “unable to be in front of a computer and needed to be able to lie in the dark.” But when her employer found out that on that day she had been logged into Facebook, albeit on her own time away from the office, she was fired. According to the employer, the incident had “destroyed its trust with the employee.” Again, this scenario brings into question the integrity of the employee.

Amendment I of the U.S. Constitution read, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech…” So while the Constitution may guarantee the right to say what we want online, it doesn’t protect our job. Speech is an inalienable right, but employment is not. The first amendment can’t be thought of as a sword and shield under every circumstance. We have to understand the Internet has changed communication forever and our actions have consequences. This change does not require another law and the government should not be deciding who makes a good employee. The private business knows best. Perhaps instead of jumping to the smart phone, or impulsively clicking ‘Like’ with the mouse, employees should take a step back and think before they post. Especially in the digital age where every opinion shared, every comment left, and every photo posted are virtually etched in stone.