Is following someone on social media a form of contact?

[M]

To make a long story short, the office I work at wants to fire me because I was suppose to have no contact with a certain individual and I accidentally followed said person on tumblr. I would argue that it is not since there was no contact.
This person is always posting false/rude things about me. I was looking at their tumblr on my phone and the cancel and follow button happen to be in the same place. That's how it happened.

[Patrick B]

You didn't "accidentally" follow them on Tumblr. After being told to avoid contact, you directly went and followed them on social media, which is a form of contact. If they decide to fire you, it's because they have just cause.

[535]

It is considered "contact". How could you "accidentally" follow this individual when you already knew you were to have no contact with him/her?

[Bruce]

What you describe is not a legal issue, it is moral issue. Yes, they can fire you for it.

[Inda Cloud]

It is a form of contact. The intent is there. You should have stayed away, it doesn't matter what they post about you.

Yes you could be fired.

PS: it can also be considered stalking.

[Keith]

You messed up. Own up to it and move on. Making excuses and trying to justify it as a mistake makes it look worse.

If they are passing false info about you as fact thats considered slander.

[HJW]

You admit the person is # ALWAYS # posting false/rude things about me, so you are following this person therefore contact. You certainly can get fired for this.

[Yeti]

"Following" is going to count as contact. When you follow, they can see you're one of their followers (and may get an approval request), they need to get nervous what you're doing with information you get, etc. It's contact.

That's nice you want to argue it happened accidentally, but you were apparently still monitoring their tumblr at the minimum. What good is going to come of that? There's not any background info here, but if your work place said no contact with a person, this is almost certainly more than enough to can you. They're not going to see what you do "accidentally" next.

[Bob]

what part of no contact is not clear?

[Andrew Peters]

In general following someone is meant to be a social contact. Nowadays it doesn't really feel like it though doesn't it? I mean how many of your Twitter followers do you actually know? There are some that are more human then others.

In this case: i wouldn't consider it a social contact. And even more, why would someone fire you for following someone on Tumblr? That's just stupid!