Coldstreams.com by Edward Mitchell

Perhaps too polite

I touched on this before – employers really are checking your online profiles (and even the profiles of your “friends”) when making hiring decisions:

Employers … “are poring over the websites to weed out job applicants whose posts reveal that they use foul language, take drugs, associate with gangs or have other questionable characteristics. Some employers are even demanding that job candidates disclose their social network user names and passwords.

….

“It’s like saying, ‘Can I read your personal diary?’ I believe that chills free speech. If everyone thinks that to get a job they have to have a perfectly clean social networking site, no one will say anything to anyone.”

via Those Facebook posts could cost you a job – SiliconValley.com.

This could warp public discourse in unsatisfactory ways. Imagine a scenario where only tenured teachers and retired people felt free to express their political thoughts and even engage in lobbying online – but everyone else kept such comments to themselves for fear of employer retribution?. Stifling large groups of people would distort, if not destroy democracy.

Ironically, the more social communications we have, the less freedom of expression we may possess.

Related articles

• Facebook, Twitter and other new, risky recruitment tools (tricitypsychology.com)
• Politics Enter the Social Media Era With Social Networking Sites (prweb.com)
• Privacy, Privacy, Privacy; New-Generation Social Network FourNote.com Unveils Successful Robust, Private, Sophisticated, Sharing Social Network for All Kinds of Users! (prweb.com)
• Social media not your “thing?” (stay-positive.com)
• Department of Homeland Security Contractor Monitored Social Networking Sites (geodatapolicy.wordpress.com)
• Those Facebook posts could cost you a job (mercurynews.com)