What about the guy that had the racist blog? Would you be ok with that type of public internet behavior from your employee? Even if they identified themselves as your employee and had a picture online posing in front of the office?
In the FHRITP case, the man worked for a public (provincial government) organization, so I'm not surprised that there was outrage that someone who behaves in that way in public was on the public payroll.
There is a big difference between blurting out drunken nonsense and soberly, premeditated publishing under a personally identifiable account, especially if it is part of your job to be the public face of the company.
On-camera, being interviewed by a television reporter who was not hiding the fact that she was recording, and he was responding directly to her questions and under no obligation to answer. You consider that "anonymously"?!
Let me guess, he was drunk and thus should not be accountable for any of his actions.
If you were to record surreptitiously everything people said under all circumstances, you'd have a whole bunch of people to castigate and berate. More than you can imagine.
I don't need my employees to think like me, act like me, or or like any particular brand of "acceptable" as defined by me or the company. I do not need to know nor care if any of my employees thinks FHRITP is funny.
I absolutely _do_ expect all of them to not go on television and demonstrate this level of bad judgement. By extension, I would now have two issues: first of all I'd question what other bad judgement comes into play in that employee's work product, secondly I'd be aware that _my_ judgement now comes into play as the responsible hiring manager.
I'm extremely sensitive to separation of work and family life. I demand the same from my employer. But I am wise enough to know that no matter what I do in the privacy of my own home, once I take that on a television news broadcast, I am in effect representing anything and everything the viewing public can now associate me with, whether it be my cycling club, my church, my darts team, my family, or my employer. (I only have the last two of those five, I'm straining for examples as I don't go out much...)
In short, where the conversation seems to be "OMG corporate thought police" it is in fact "seriously, keep that to yourself".
noun: judgement - the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.