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(EDIT: The now-deleted Tweet said “I have been terminated from Zoom for refusing to remove the following tweets. Anyone have recommendations for wrongful termin

(EDIT: The now-deleted Tweet said “I have been terminated from Zoom for refusing to remove the following tweets. Anyone have recommendations for wrongful termination lawyers based in California?” His Twitter feed still has the leaked materials and Tweets critical of Okta) So he’s posting leaked, private materials that he doesn’t have rights to, and the materials are from a Zoom partner company that provides a critical integration for the company’s operations? Obviously he’s going to get fired if he refuses to remove the Tweets. I’m surprised they even offered to let him stay if he removed them. You can’t have an employee actively leaking private materials from one of your key partner companies with which you’ve undoubtedly engaged in a lot of contracts. This isn’t really a wrongful termination case. If you want to be a Twitter leaker of private company materials on sensitive topics, you can’t also expect to work for companies adjacent to those leaked materials.

gjsman-1000 5y ago
Actually, for publicly sharing leaked private materials of partner companies, the offer to delete the tweets instead of getting fired was merciful.
- davidg109 5y ago
  I agree, Zoom seemed willing to work with the ex-employee. Unfortunately people often overlook that they are an ambassador for the company they work for. Their employer will usually not tolerate aggravating a (potential) revenue-generating relationship with a third party by any employee. I believe Zoom did the right thing here, but I’m curious what CA law says.
  - SuperGent 5y ago
    I believe that California is an 'at-will' state so it might not make any difference, but I'm not a lawyer.
- peoplefromibiza 5y ago
  that's the difference between countries where workers are protected and where they are not. You can't fire someone just because they posted pictures online only because you don't like them, where I live. Because your employer have no saying in what you do in your private life. The most probable outcome if the picture were removed was being fired from Zoom after removing the pictures. At least now we know about them.
  - akerl_ 5y ago
    These weren’t pictures of him wearing a racy outfit on a vacation. He works in the tech industry, and he posted leaked documents from a tech company. His employer can pretty sanely draw the parallel and say “we don’t want to employ someone who is OK with broadcasting leaked documents from companies like ours”. Even in countries with different levels of worker protections, that’s a pretty clear cause for termination.
    - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
      > He works in the tech industry, and he posted leaked documents from a tech company You can't be fired for that. It's against the law. The leaker is responsible, not the employer posting them. As it should be in a decent country with decent laws in the west. We don't live in Vladimir Putin's Russia, do we? > Even in countries with different levels of worker protections, that’s a pretty clear cause for termination. actually, it is not. And if you really wanna try that, you can't do it without a judge saying you could do it. And if the employer is right, you have to give them the job back and pay all the legal fees.
      - vageli 5y ago
        > > He works in the tech industry, and he posted leaked documents from a tech company > You can't be fired for that. > It's against the law. Citation needed. In most US states you can be fired for no reason at all.
        5y ago
- mywittyname 5y ago
  I suspect the firing would happen either way, but the difference would be in how the company handled it. Delete the tweets and the person gets a severance, maybe a "layoff" instead of firing with cause, and no pushback on unemployment claims. Don't delete it, fired with cause, no severance, no unemployment, potential criminal charges. It looks like the tweets are gone now anyway.
  - stjohnswarts 5y ago
    I think so, they don't need the bad publicity so let it die down and fire him in 3 to 6 months out for something else but really this.
TehShrike 5y ago
He says > None of the data I shared is from my organization and it was obtained entirely independently. I did not break any NDA or contract. I would never violate the trust of the organization I work for. https://twitter.com/BillDemirkapi/status/1508614036719648771 https://twitter.com/BillDemirkapi/status/1508614036719648771
- gjsman-1000 5y ago
  It doesn't have to be obtained from your organization if it is an embarrassment to the company or its partners. It would be like an NSA Employee tweeting about Snowden.
- PragmaticPulp 5y ago
  Doesn’t matter that it was obtained “independently”. Doesn’t matter that he didn’t sign an NDA with Okta. Zoom certainly had agreements with Okta that prohibit employees from either company from sharing private information publicly like this. To remain compliant, they can’t continue to employ someone who is publicly violating that (with his handle emblazoned all over the documents, no less) You can’t expect to work for a company while publicly leaking materials from one of their partners, regardless of how you acquired it.
  - rendall 5y ago
    > the materials are from a Zoom partner company that provides a critical integration for the company’s operations? > Zoom certainly had agreements with Okta that prohibit employees... Partner? Can you say more about this? How do you know Zoom and Okta are partners?
    - helsinkiandrew 5y ago
      https://www.okta.com/partners/zoom/ https://www.okta.com/partners/zoom/
    - dmd 5y ago
      There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of organizations that log into Zoom via Okta.
syshum 5y ago
This is why anonymity is important. Having grew up in the 80's getting internet in the 90's, using "real names" online was unthinkable.
- spacemanmatt 5y ago
  OTOH it's been curious to see the real humans I only knew by famous nicknames come out, in more recent times.
  - syshum 5y ago
    I have had many names over the years... I tend to shred them every 2 years or so, this one has lasted longer than normal, and I am close to shredding it just lazy.. I dont think I will ever change that, and keep a fake name very long, and I can never envision going full real names.
joshribakoff 5y ago
> I’m surprised they even offered to let him stay if he removed them Isn’t it just like with the police, they can legally lie in this context? “If you turn yourself in we’ll go east on you”. They can just turn around and fire him anyway because it is an at will work state
- bhaney 5y ago
  > They can just turn around and fire him anyway There wouldn't be much point in them lying like that. He can also just turn around and repost the tweets after all.
  - kingofpandora 5y ago
    This is a warning or future leakers not an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle since that information is out forever.
px43 5y ago
The leak is already widely available publicly. It's OSINT now, public domain. Pretending like it doesn't exist is going to do customers a lot more harm than good, so doing your part to make sure that people know that these materials are public is 100% in the interest of the public, and Zoom's customers.
- lelanthran 5y ago
  > The leak is already widely available publicly. It's OSINT now, public domain. Pretending like it doesn't exist is going to do customers a lot more harm than good, so doing your part to make sure that people know that these materials are public is 100% in the interest of the public, and Zoom's customers. Yeah, but what an employee thinks is good for the customer is irrelevant. What the company thinks is good for the customer is the relevant question. If the employee thinks that republishing publicly available leaks is good for the customer, they should get permission from the company before publishing it. It's not the employee's call, even if it is in the customer's interest. Whistle-blowing is a totally different thing; this wasn't that.
smsm42 5y ago
He didn't "leak" the materials, as far as I can see, only reproduced them.

gjsman-1000 5y ago

Actually, for publicly sharing leaked private materials of partner companies, the offer to delete the tweets instead of getting fired was merciful.

davidg109 5y ago
I agree, Zoom seemed willing to work with the ex-employee. Unfortunately people often overlook that they are an ambassador for the company they work for. Their employer will usually not tolerate aggravating a (potential) revenue-generating relationship with a third party by any employee. I believe Zoom did the right thing here, but I’m curious what CA law says.
- SuperGent 5y ago
  I believe that California is an 'at-will' state so it might not make any difference, but I'm not a lawyer.
peoplefromibiza 5y ago
that's the difference between countries where workers are protected and where they are not. You can't fire someone just because they posted pictures online only because you don't like them, where I live. Because your employer have no saying in what you do in your private life. The most probable outcome if the picture were removed was being fired from Zoom after removing the pictures. At least now we know about them.
- akerl_ 5y ago
  These weren’t pictures of him wearing a racy outfit on a vacation. He works in the tech industry, and he posted leaked documents from a tech company. His employer can pretty sanely draw the parallel and say “we don’t want to employ someone who is OK with broadcasting leaked documents from companies like ours”. Even in countries with different levels of worker protections, that’s a pretty clear cause for termination.
  - peoplefromibiza 5y ago
    > He works in the tech industry, and he posted leaked documents from a tech company You can't be fired for that. It's against the law. The leaker is responsible, not the employer posting them. As it should be in a decent country with decent laws in the west. We don't live in Vladimir Putin's Russia, do we? > Even in countries with different levels of worker protections, that’s a pretty clear cause for termination. actually, it is not. And if you really wanna try that, you can't do it without a judge saying you could do it. And if the employer is right, you have to give them the job back and pay all the legal fees.
    - vageli 5y ago
      > > He works in the tech industry, and he posted leaked documents from a tech company > You can't be fired for that. > It's against the law. Citation needed. In most US states you can be fired for no reason at all.
      - 5y ago
mywittyname 5y ago
I suspect the firing would happen either way, but the difference would be in how the company handled it. Delete the tweets and the person gets a severance, maybe a "layoff" instead of firing with cause, and no pushback on unemployment claims. Don't delete it, fired with cause, no severance, no unemployment, potential criminal charges. It looks like the tweets are gone now anyway.
- stjohnswarts 5y ago
  I think so, they don't need the bad publicity so let it die down and fire him in 3 to 6 months out for something else but really this.

TehShrike 5y ago

He says > None of the data I shared is from my organization and it was obtained entirely independently. I did not break any NDA or contract. I would never violate the trust of the organization I work for. https://twitter.com/BillDemirkapi/status/1508614036719648771 https://twitter.com/BillDemirkapi/status/1508614036719648771

gjsman-1000 5y ago
It doesn't have to be obtained from your organization if it is an embarrassment to the company or its partners. It would be like an NSA Employee tweeting about Snowden.
PragmaticPulp 5y ago
Doesn’t matter that it was obtained “independently”. Doesn’t matter that he didn’t sign an NDA with Okta. Zoom certainly had agreements with Okta that prohibit employees from either company from sharing private information publicly like this. To remain compliant, they can’t continue to employ someone who is publicly violating that (with his handle emblazoned all over the documents, no less) You can’t expect to work for a company while publicly leaking materials from one of their partners, regardless of how you acquired it.
- rendall 5y ago
  > the materials are from a Zoom partner company that provides a critical integration for the company’s operations? > Zoom certainly had agreements with Okta that prohibit employees... Partner? Can you say more about this? How do you know Zoom and Okta are partners?
  - helsinkiandrew 5y ago
    https://www.okta.com/partners/zoom/ https://www.okta.com/partners/zoom/
  - dmd 5y ago
    There are tens if not hundreds of thousands of organizations that log into Zoom via Okta.

syshum 5y ago

This is why anonymity is important. Having grew up in the 80's getting internet in the 90's, using "real names" online was unthinkable.

spacemanmatt 5y ago
OTOH it's been curious to see the real humans I only knew by famous nicknames come out, in more recent times.
- syshum 5y ago
  I have had many names over the years... I tend to shred them every 2 years or so, this one has lasted longer than normal, and I am close to shredding it just lazy.. I dont think I will ever change that, and keep a fake name very long, and I can never envision going full real names.

joshribakoff 5y ago

> I’m surprised they even offered to let him stay if he removed them Isn’t it just like with the police, they can legally lie in this context? “If you turn yourself in we’ll go east on you”. They can just turn around and fire him anyway because it is an at will work state

bhaney 5y ago
> They can just turn around and fire him anyway There wouldn't be much point in them lying like that. He can also just turn around and repost the tweets after all.
- kingofpandora 5y ago
  This is a warning or future leakers not an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle since that information is out forever.

px43 5y ago

The leak is already widely available publicly. It's OSINT now, public domain. Pretending like it doesn't exist is going to do customers a lot more harm than good, so doing your part to make sure that people know that these materials are public is 100% in the interest of the public, and Zoom's customers.

lelanthran 5y ago
> The leak is already widely available publicly. It's OSINT now, public domain. Pretending like it doesn't exist is going to do customers a lot more harm than good, so doing your part to make sure that people know that these materials are public is 100% in the interest of the public, and Zoom's customers. Yeah, but what an employee thinks is good for the customer is irrelevant. What the company thinks is good for the customer is the relevant question. If the employee thinks that republishing publicly available leaks is good for the customer, they should get permission from the company before publishing it. It's not the employee's call, even if it is in the customer's interest. Whistle-blowing is a totally different thing; this wasn't that.

smsm42 5y ago

He didn't "leak" the materials, as far as I can see, only reproduced them.