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Sharing offensive material with colleagues on social media was "abject stupidity", a Fair Work Commission full bench has found, but the conduct wasn't sufficiently connected to work to justify dismissal.

The Ventia leading firefighter was sacked in September last year for sharing offensive content in the 'Sickos Video Sharing Group' on Facebook, including, among other things, a photo of three nude female bottoms and a screenshot of a pornographic video.

In unfair dismissal proceedings earlier this year, Commissioner Bernie Riordan accepted the group contained pornographic videos, racist memes and "idle chat", however he found only two of the employee's posts were valid dismissal reasons, due to their breach of bullying and other policies.

One post was an image that referenced a new fire truck being akin to an old bicycle, which could be considered disrespectful given a manager's "hard work" in obtaining the fire truck; while another photo of a colleague in the employer's carpark shouldn't have been posted, as it was prohibited to publish images of the workplace without approval, he found...