Another blogger fired

Never mind free speech, if the boss doesn't like something you have to say in your blog, you could end up jobless.

Joyce Park works (worked) for Friendster as a programmer. Her specific job was to speed up the site by switching some key site components from JavaScript to PHP. She made the very bad mistake, apparently, of stating in passing in reply to a question about her PHP operations that the site had been a bit "pokey" before the change.

Not exactly earth-shaking stuff. Nevertheless, enough to get her fired.

Critics of Friendster's move called it "silly" in light of Park's boosterism of the company. "Especially for a social networking company, it seems to reflect a particularly poor understanding of the medium," said Wendy Seltzer, staff attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. She added that because Friendster is a private company based in California, it can fire people at will, barring any discrimination. One blogger even urged Friendster users to terminate their accounts in retaliation. --Cnet News

Visit the Troutgirl site to get an idea of how it feels to get fired over a few published words. Apparently it isn't exactly a good feeling.