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Should employers be allowed hold employees accountable for what's on social networking sites?

Do you think employers should be able to hold employees liable for social networking sites like myspace or Facebook? There's been a lot of stories in the news lately about employers checking employees Facebook/Myspace pages and issuing disciplinary action or badgering employees based on what the find. Aside from pics and such that show illegal activity, do you think this should be legal? I ask this because I had an incident of this happening at the human service agency where I work. A friend who had added me to their top friends on myspace had a picture of a marijuana leaf as the background of his page. I hadn't even known about what was on the page until a co-worker who saw it told my supervisor and then I found out about it. Anyway, my supervisor proceeded to lecture me about how having my image on the same page as a pic of a marijuana leaf calls into question my personal ethics, professionalism, and my ability to serve as a role model. I was told that I had to delete the person as a friend so that my image would no longer be on that page. (For the record, I'm against any form of recreational drug use, but respect others' opinions on the issue) Do you think an employer should be allowed to make an issue of something like this? To clarify the role-model comment my supervisor made, I work with mentally ill adults, not children or teens.

Public Comments

1. Holding you accountable for what your friends do does seem to be a bit extreme. However, if you want your privacy, change your setting so that your boss and others at work can't see anything. .
2. I would never put anything that mentions my employer on a social networking site. If you have your employer's name on your site, then they can argue that they're being associated with whatever nonsense you have on there, whether you posted it yourself or not. If you don't have the employer's name or anything mentioning them on your site there's not much call for them to be monitoring what you do, but be aware that they have the ability and assume that they are. Nothing on the internet is ever private. Ever. The problem with social networking sites comes when you say negative things about your coworkers/boss or complain about customers. That kind of stuff will not be tolerated by an employer, and you should expect to get fired if you do that.
3. Anything you post on these site you should be held accountable. It's not different than if you go on the local news and start talking bad about your company. The internet is a public network, and anyone that has access to your Facebook or Myspace site can see it. In your example, though ("A friend who had added me to their top friends on myspace had a picture of a marijuana leaf as the background of his page."), you should NOT be held responsible for what others post on their sites, even if you are linked as friends. Just because your friend may believe this way does not mean you have to believe the same thing. And your employer dictating who you can be friends with and who you cannot is stepping way over the line.
4. That has already been through the courts several times. Yes they can hold you responsible and they can terminate you for it. Anything you put out on the internet is public knowledge, even if your page is private all you need is a friend to tag a photo of you doing something stupid and it can be held against you. Also if your employer is mentioned anywhere it also puts them in a bad light.