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Social media is an all-too-frequent ground for the discipline of licensed professionals by state licensing boards or agencies. As a result, professionals must be wary of violating rules by posting certain messages, pictures, or links on any social media platform.
How Social Media Usage Can Lead to Disciplinary Violations
Using social media to air complaints, grievances, and other problems is commonplace today. Criticizing a business, a government entity, or even your employer is routine when a person has what they perceive as a negative experience. Although people can freely express their thoughts, experiences, and opinions on social media platforms, freedom is not without consequences, especially when you are a licensed professional. Publicly airing a grievance on social media that you have with another lawyer, a client, your employer, or even your licensing board can lead to disciplinary action against you. Disciplinary actions can be highly detrimental to your career and result in unwanted sanctions.
For example, an attorney who experiences a frustrating client can run into disciplinary problems if he gives enough detail in an online post to allow some people to identify the client. The attorney may be accused of violating ethical rules concerning the attorney-client relationship and, depending on the tenor and details of the post, of other rules governing professional conduct.
Likewise, if a CPA is in the throes of what he sees as a frivolous disciplinary case with his licensing board and posts details of the case online, he could violate various rules governing the accounting profession. He could even find himself or herself charged with another violation by his licensing board.
Another common source of social media trouble occurs when an unflattering portrait of a license-holder is published online. Pictures of a license-holder doing drugs, inflammatory posts perceived as racist or sexist, and similar online behavior can result in disciplinary action by a licensing board.
The Texas Board of Nursing and Its Social Media Policy
The Texas Board of Nursing (BON) has issued “Position Statement 15.29: Professional Boundaries Including Use of Social Media by Nurses” to address how using social media can result in nurses violating Texas laws and rules.
More specifically, Position Statement 15.29 states that nurses who post on social media platforms can easily make nurses responsible for knowing, recognizing, and maintaining professional boundaries with patients.
According to 22 Tex. Admin. Code §217.1(29), professional boundaries are:
The appropriate limits which should be established by the nurse in the nurse/client relationship due to the nurse’s power and the patient’s vulnerability. Refers to the provision of nursing services within the limits of the nurse/client relationship, which promote the client’s dignity, independence and best interests and refrain from inappropriate involvement in the client’s personal relationships and/or the obtainment of the nurse’s personal gain at the client’s expense.
Professional boundaries can involve the overinvolvement of a nurse in a patient's life, whether physical, sexual, emotional, or financial. Violating professional boundaries qualifies as professional misconduct that can lead to disciplinary action under Texas law.
The BON explicitly states that a nurse’s use of social media can unintentionally blur the boundaries between a nurse’s professional and personal lives. A lack of boundaries on social media platforms can lead to a nurse violating professional boundaries. Based on these concerns, the BON has issued the following statements concerning nurses’ social media usage:
Nurses have an ethical and legal obligation to maintain patient privacy and confidentiality, including when using social media. Using privacy settings is insufficient to ensure privacy.
- Nurses must maintain professional boundaries when using social media and never engage in disparaging, degrading, or embarrassing patients.
- Nurses must provide nursing services without discrimination and refrain from making threatening, harassing, profane, obscene, sexually explicit, racially derogatory, homophobic, or other offensive comments.
- Nurses must be aware of and comply with all laws and rules, including employer policies regarding using electronic devices, work-owned electronic equipment, and personal devices in the workplace. In addition, nurses must ensure appropriate and therapeutic use of all patient-related electronic media according to applicable laws and employer policies.
The Texas State Board of Examiners of Professional Counselors and Social Media Posts
The Texas State Board of Examiners of Professional Counselors (the Board), which is housed in the Texas Behavioral Health Executive Commission (BHEC), has also issued “Guidelines for Using Social Media” for professional counselors.
These Guidelines state that licensed counselors must consider their ethical and professional responsibilities when using any type of social media. Whether to use any social media tools to deliver services and communicate is very fact and client specific. Factors such as culture, language, technology, ease of use, and service needs are all relevant to this determination.
With those statements in mind, the Board has issued specific guidelines for licensed professional counselors, including the following:
- Obtain proper informed consent before engaging in social media with clients;
- Maintain professional boundaries with clients and their surrogates;
- Safeguard the privacy and confidentiality of clients;
- Evaluate the appropriateness of social media usage with each client;
- Provide online professional counseling or services only through a secure portal of a practice or institution;
- Refrain from disclosing individually identifiable protected health information;
- Turn down requests from clients to connect on personal social media accounts;
- Communicate and engage in social media only with civility and respect for others;
- Consider social media posts as permanent, even if later deleted;
- Maintain current knowledge and training on social media platforms used in professional practice;
- Notify professional colleagues if they have posted inappropriate content; and
- Observe the rules for marketing a professional practice online.
The Board also notes that it may discipline license holders for unprofessional conduct related to social media usage. Examples of potentially actionable conduct include the following:
- Inappropriate communication with clients online;
- Online sexual misconduct;
- Use of the internet for unprofessional behavior;
- Online misrepresentation of credentials;
- Online violations of client confidentiality;
- Failure to reveal conflicts of interest online;
- Online derogatory remarks regarding a client;
- Any engagement in online discriminatory language or practices.
Conclusion
In today’s digital age, licensed professionals must recognize that their social media presence is not separate from their professional responsibilities. What may seem like a harmless post, or an emotional vent online can lead to serious disciplinary consequences, including investigations, sanctions, or even the loss of a license. Regulatory bodies across professions—whether nursing, counseling, law, or accounting—have made it clear that social media misuse can constitute unprofessional conduct. Therefore, it is essential for professionals to remain vigilant, understand their board’s rules and ethical guidelines, and always maintain appropriate boundaries both online and offline. When in doubt, pause before posting—your career and livelihood may depend on it.
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