Paul from Paris

Did you see Farhad Manjoo’s article in Slate, reporting on the decline of the desktop computer compared to the laptop?

Sales of desktops and portables are roughly even today, but laptops are ascendant; by 2015, desktops may decline to only a small minority of total computer sales.

Of course, how a computer looks is secondary to what it can do and how it is used. The desktop-to-laptop ratio recalls the rotary-to-pushbutton phone ratio.

But there’s more to the story. What I took from Manjoo’s piece was confirmation that a laptop is becoming standard issue: something that almost everyone has, as a matter of course.

A French man referred on his Facebook wall to a “club des néfastes“. That’s hard to translate; I’ll volunteer “circle of harm”, “band of evildoers”, or “toxic club”.

The French man was referring to his boss and the HR chief of the company he worked for. Should this be a firing offense?

One of the man’s Facebook friends “liked” the status update, another commented “welcome to the club”. Should these be firing offenses?

For the employer, Alten, they were, and the employees were terminated for gross misconduct. Alten described their action as “disparaging the firm” and “inciting rebellion”.

A French labor court recently heard the case, but was deadlocked in reaching a decision. The case has drawn considerable media attention, so some background and context seemed useful:

1. For more than twenty years, France’s highest judicial court (the Cour des cassation), has repeatedly affirmed employees’ rights to self expression. In the leading case (the Clavaud case, decided 22 April 1988), a factory worker had been terminated after he spoke with L’Humanité, a communist daily, and expressed a bleak view of his employer. The court not only acknowledged the worker’s right to expression, it also opened a door to a powerful remedy. Specifically, the court annulled the termination, paving the way for possible reinstatement. This remedy is exceptional, the general rule in French labor disputes being money damages. The high court has affirmed its position repeatedly over the years (French economic daily Les Echos has provided a list of the cases).
2. This having been said, French employers do tend to insist upon a deferential posture towards “hierarchical superiors”. (I hear echoes of the ancien régime and a moralizing tone in this common expression.) And some French employees spend astonishing amounts of time and effort to question and resist their bosses. A print-out of a screen shot offers an employer evidence of what may be the visible tip of an iceberg of noncooperation. Terminating one employee –even on legally shaky grounds– might set an example for others, offering the employer a chance to communicate about desired or expected behavior.
3. At-will employment doesn’t exist in France. As a baseline rule, an employer can terminate an employee only for cause. (An employee can terminate the relationship for any reason, including no reason, on notice.) Sometimes, an employer will be surer in its desire to terminate an employee than in the possible cause for termination. Labor matters tend to be litigious in France (as are settlements of labor disputes), so uncertainty about cause need not hinder a termination. Simply put: the cause advanced by an employer sometimes sounds so implausible (“inciting rebellion”) that an objective hearer might wonder whether at-will employment wouldn’t be preferable, after all.
4. Labor disputes in France are common. They are heard by specialized courts with elected judges, half of whom are chosen by employers and half by employees. In this case, the judges deadlocked. This need not signal a difficult case. For example, judges can differ on remedies or the amount of damages to award. When there is a deadlock, an additional judge, a career civil servant, joins the deliberations; with an odd number of judges, a majority decision is ensured.
5. Because there are many labor disputes, French labor courts have heavy dockets. In this case, employees terminated in December 2008 had their case heard in 2010 (although it will not be decided until the second half of 2010). Two years is a long time. France does not permit labor disputes to be arbitrated. Settlement is possible, but hard to predict. In this case, maybe he passage of time makes employees more open to settlement; or maybe it simply embitters employees, steeling their resolve to go to court. Likewise, maybe the employer seeks to postpone a final decision as long as possible; or maybe it has a policy to settle labor disputes only after a trial-level court has ruled against it.

Facebook is a red herring –a distraction– in this case. This has not prevented some commentators from using the story as a cautionary tale about the “dangers” of social media.

For my part, I think the case is interesting because of the five points mentioned above. Each point merits fact-finding, research, and careful development, not feasible with the limits of a blog and the limitations of this blogger.

“I don’t see what this is for“, a seasoned businessman told me a few years ago, about the LinkedIn social networking site.

I now hold the same view: I don’t see the point of LinkedIn.

I use LinkedIn as a virtual address book. Assuming that other users keep their e-mail addresses current, I will be able to contact and get back in touch with them in the future.

Thanks to this feature, I will keep my LinkedIn account. But for me, the site presents five drawbacks that seriously depress its value, to me:

• The site dictates the kind and form of content that users can post. It’s prescriptive and top-down.
• The basic template is a resume or CV. The site prescribes the form, so all users look similar. Over time, the site gives me the impression of an immense pile of resumes left “on file”. Being in a pile doesn’t particularly interest me.
• The site’s premise is to harness the network effect. But the site prescribes whether and how I can exchange with other members. And the structure looks to me like a constellation of private clubs or closed circles. If interest or affinity groups offer something to their members, wouldn’t they already have an online presence? Why would I want or need to access these groups through LinkedIn?
• LinkedIn emphasizes affirmation over demonstration. When making an outbound referral, I think first of those whom I know and whose work I know. In LinkedIn, exchanges tend towards the impersonal, and activities tend towards institutional affiliations (and so-called recommendations, where X –who is probably a stranger to me– says good things about Y, whom I’m supposed to know). I’m more interested in what Y is up to today and what her current work is. And I’d like to share what I do with others.
• “Upgrade to premium” solicitations or hiding content behind a paywall turns me off.

François, an unemployed 23-year-old, lives with his parents in Auvergne and spends lots of time on the Internet.

François searched the web for information on some employees of Twitter, in order to be able to guess answers to “secret questions” asked if a user forgets a password.

According to Adeline Champagnat of the French central office against online fraud (French acronym, O.C.L.C.T.I.C.), “he found the passwords of Twitter administrator accounts that would have let him then access access other accounts. He could have practically taken control of Twitter. Il could have, for example, deleted an account.”

As it happens, François seems to be a trespasser, not a burglar: he acknowledges accessing the administrator accounts but took only screen shots, in order to have bragging rights, under screen name “Hacker Croll”, to his exploits. Francois didn’t take control of Twitter, access other accounts, or delete anything.

François was apprehended last week and, after a day’s detention, charged with illegal access to a computer system. He will stand trial on June 24 in Clermont-Ferrant. If convicted, François could be imprisoned for up to two years and fined up to 30 000 euros.

This case makes me uneasy, for two reasons.

First, law enforcement seems to have grabbed the lowest-hanging fruit on the tree. Acting alone, in a hit-or-miss way, a late-blooming adolescent trespassed on Twitter, without injury to person, property, or data. Certainly there are cases more dire that investigators could pursue.

Second, the media failed to ask questions about François and showed no real knowledge of Twitter. The online service was invariably described as “the network used by Barack Obama and Britney Spears”, illustrated by stock footage of the President and the performer. Most reporters seemed to struggle with the technical aspects of the case and to view computers and the Internet as necessarily aggravating factors.

Some people feel threatened by Facebook and oppose it strongly.

In France, where I live, I witnessed this demonization recently. It came from the Alsatian town of Ribeauvillé, in the midst of a winemaking region.

The action occurred at the Ménétriers middle school. Several students –all are minors, probably age 11 to 14– posted to or visited Facebook group pages about the Ménétriers middle school.

What did the posts say? I don’t know, and I haven’t seen a description by a journalist or authority, but someone felt that posts or pages insulted school teachers or staff.

The school’s principal, Alain Batio (reportedly the subject of an “anti-Batio from Ménétriers” page or post) decided to act. He:

• Launched an investigation to figure out which students were involved with the group (of which, reportedly, no student was an administrator);
• Suspended several dozen students for a period of one day to one week;
• Required students to write an essay, presumably confessional;
• Threatened disciplinary action, in addition to suspension and essay-writing;
• In his officially capacity, filed a criminal complaint for defaming civil servants; the local gendarmes are investigating, and convictions could result in fines of up to € 45,000;
• Sought to have offended pages removed from Facebook, apparently with success.

The gravity of an insult depends partly on the disposition of its recipient, but let’s assume the worst: posts to the Facebook pages falsely described specific schoolteachers as incompetent or doers of morally reprehensible misdeeds. Are those libeled so sensitive, is their authority so precarious, to justify that those connected with the wrongdoing, directly or peripherally, face a full arsenal of school disciplinary actions, and criminal prosecution?

I would wish that juvenile behavior, by juveniles (age 11 to 14), not incite overreaction, especially from schools. I’m particularly troubled in this case by the haste with which the school principal called in law enforcement, making what he treated as a school issue also a law enforcement issue.

One would think that words injure less than blows, but in this case Facebook seems to have acted as a strongly aggravating factor.

This is strange, because school violence is perceived as a real problem in France: according to a Harris Interactive poll last month, 61% of those surveyed are concerned about their child’s safety at school; and 90% of those surveyed think that school violence has increased in the past ten years.

Two aspects set this violence apart from the Ribeauvillé Facebook scandal: it is directed against children, not adults; and it involves physical violence and bodily harm, not injury to honor or reputation. While one middle school worried about Facebook, others had to deal, in the same month, with young teens falling victim, on school premises, to knife attack. In one case, the sense of violation provoked by this violence was so great that teachers –responsible, adult teachers– exercised their “right of withdrawal”, not reporting for duty at school for several days becuse of the extent of the danger. (Arguably, protest motivated their action as much as actual danger.)