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Is your social media history fair game? Firm collects all u posted for last 7 yrs

Discussion in 'In the News' started by Bliss, Jul 22, 2011.

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Bliss Well-Known Member

How though..unless you blogged under your real name, right?

Is your social media history fair game?
Social Media History Becomes a New Job Hurdle -
One firm collects everything you may have said or done online in the past seven years

JENNIFER PRESTON, On Wednesday July 20, 2011, 8:08 pm EDT

Companies have long used criminal background checks, credit reports and even searches on Google and LinkedIn to probe the previous lives of prospective employees. Now, some companies are requiring job candidates to also pass a social media background check.

A year-old start-up, Social Intelligence, scrapes the Internet for everything prospective employees may have said or done online in the past seven years.

Then it assembles a dossier with examples of professional honors and charitable work, along with negative information that meets specific criteria: online evidence of racist remarks; references to drugs; sexually explicit photos, text messages or videos; flagrant displays of weapons or bombs and clearly identifiable violent activity.

“We are not detectives,” said Max Drucker, chief executive of the company, which is based in Santa Barbara, Calif. “All we assemble is what is publicly available on the Internet today.”

The Federal Trade Commission, after initially raising concerns last fall about Social Intelligence’s business, determined the company is in compliance with the Fair Credit Reporting Act, but the service still alarms privacy advocates who say that it invites employers to look at information that may not be relevant to job performance.

And what relevant unflattering information has led to job offers being withdrawn or not made? Mr. Drucker said that one prospective employee was found using Craigslist to look for OxyContin. A woman posing naked in photos she put up on an image-sharing site didn’t get the job offer she was seeking at a hospital.

Other background reports have turned up examples of people making anti-Semitic comments and racist remarks, he said. Then there was the job applicant who belonged to a Facebook group, “This Is America. I Shouldn’t Have to Press 1 for English.” This raises a question. “Does that mean you don’t like people who don’t speak English?” asked Mr. Drucker rhetorically.

Mr. Drucker said his goal was to conduct pre-employment screenings that would help companies meet their obligation to conduct fair and consistent hiring practices while protecting the privacy of job candidates.

For example, he said the reports remove references to a person’s religion, race, marital status, sexual orientation, disability and other information protected under federal employment laws, which companies are not supposed to ask about during interviews. Also, job candidates must first consent to the background check, and they are notified of any adverse information found.

He argues the search reduces the risk that employers may confuse the job candidate with someone else or expose the company to information that is not legally allowable or relevant. “Googling someone is ridiculously unfair,” he said. “An employer could discriminate against someone inadvertently. Or worse, they are exposing themselves to all kinds of allegations about discrimination.”

Marc S. Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, based in Washington, said that employers were entitled to gather information to make a determination about job-related expertise, but he expressed concern that “employers should not be judging what people in their private lives do away from the workplace.”

Less than a third of the data surfaced by Mr. Drucker’s firm comes from such major social platforms as Facebook, Twitter and MySpace. He said much of the negative information about job candidates comes from deep Web searches that find comments on blogs and posts on smaller social sites, like Tumblr, the blogging site, as well as Yahoo user groups, e-commerce sites, bulletin boards and even Craigslist.

Then there are the photos and videos that people post — or find themselves tagged in — on Facebook and YouTube and other sharing sites like Flickr, Picasa, Yfrog and Photobucket.

And it is photos and videos that seem to get most people in trouble. “Sexually explicit photos and videos are beyond comprehension,” Mr. Drucker said. “We also see flagrant displays of weapons. And we see a lot of illegal activity. Lots and lots of pictures of drug use.”

He recalled one man who had 15 pages of photos showing himself with various guns, including an assault rifle. Another man included pictures of himself standing in a greenhouse with large marijuana plants.

Given complex “terms of service” agreements on most sites and Web applications, Mr. Rotenberg said people do not always realize that comments or content they generate are publicly available.

“People are led to believe that there is more limited disclosure than there actually is, in many cases,” he said, pointing out that Facebook’s frequent changes to its privacy settings in recent years may have put some people at risk in getting a job now because of personal information they might have inadvertently made public.

“What Facebook was doing was taking people’s personal information that they made available to family and friends and make that information available more widely to prospective employers,” said Mr. Rotenberg, whose organization has several pending complaints at the Federal Trade Commission about Facebook’s privacy settings.

Joe Bontke, outreach manager for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s office in Houston, said that he regularly reminds employers and human resource managers about the risks of violating federal antidiscrimination employment rules and laws by using online research in hiring decisions.

“Things that you can’t ask in an interview are the same things you can’t research,” he said, which includes the gamut of information covering a person’s age, gender, religion, disability, national origin and race.

That said, he added that 75 percent of recruiters are required by their companies to do online research of candidates. And 70 percent of recruiters in the United States report that they have rejected candidates because of information online, he said.

Dave Clark, owner of Impulse Advanced Communications, a telecommunications company in Southern California, began relying on Social Intelligence for background screening because he said the company needed a formal strategy and standards before assembling online information about job candidates. “They provided us with a standardized, arm’s-length way of using this additional information to make better hiring decisions,” he said.

About half of all companies, based on government and private surveys, now use credit reports as part of the hiring process, except in those states that limit or restrict their use. As with social media background checks, there are concerns about information that is surfaced. The equal employment agency filed a lawsuit last December against the Kaplan Higher Education Corporation, accusing it of discriminating against black job applicants in the way it used credit histories in its hiring process.

But it is not unusual for senior-level executives in many companies to undergo even more complete background checks by a private investigating firm.

“We are living in a world where you have an amazing amount of information and data on every executive,” said Ann Blinkhorn, an executive recruiter in the converging technology, media and communications industry. “I think that puts the burden on the recruiter and the hiring manager to be really thoughtful about what is important and not important when making the hiring decision.”[/B]
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http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Social-Media-History-Becomes-nytimes-510406413.html?x=0&.v=1

Bliss, Jul 22, 2011

#1
stiletoes Well-Known Member

Big Brother is watching>>>>>>>>>>>

stiletoes, Jul 23, 2011

#2
Bliss Well-Known Member

This reminds me of the case of a teacher, 20 plus years, and one day she was frustrated and went home and wrote a message of how bad some of the class kids were being raised by their parents, etc...to what she thought was a private FaceBook friend, and inadvertently sent it out to everyone. She lost her job, reputation, all because of one post. It's quite sad, really.

Bliss, Jul 23, 2011

#3
Morning Star Well-Known Member

I AM WATCHING YOU!

stiletoes said: ↑

Big Brother is watching>>>>>>>>>>>

Click to expand...

Morning Star, Jul 23, 2011

#4
TreePixie New Member

Kunoichi said: ↑

How though..unless you blogged under your real name, right?

That depends. Is there anything which links your real name to the name you blog/social network under? Like an emaill address? Facebook?
Click to expand...

TreePixie, Jul 23, 2011

#5
stiletoes Well-Known Member

BigBrotherWise said: ↑

I AM WATCHING YOU!

Click to expand...

CREEPY................

stiletoes, Jul 23, 2011

#6
Morning Star Well-Known Member

That's Big Brother for you darling....

stiletoes said: ↑

CREEPY................
Click to expand...

Morning Star, Jul 23, 2011

#7
Tony Soprano Moderator

Tony Soprano, Jul 23, 2011

#8
andreboba Well-Known Member

The dark side of the interwebz.

Privacy is king, when possible always use an alias and a ghost IP.

If you don't have a criminal record, someone checking out your social media history is just simple old bullshit.

andreboba, Jul 24, 2011

#9
TreePixie New Member

andreboba said: ↑

The dark side of the interwebz.

Privacy is king, when possible always use an alias and a ghost IP.

If you don't have a criminal record, someone checking out your social media history is just simple old bullshit.
Click to expand...

And avoid using your real name *anywhere*.

TreePixie, Jul 24, 2011

#10
Bliss Well-Known Member

TreePixie said: ↑

Kunoichi said: ↑

How though..unless you blogged under your real name, right?

That depends. Is there anything which links your real name to the name you blog/social network under? Like an emaill address? Facebook?
Click to expand...

No not really, but I do use my real name on Facebook but mine is very PG and family-oriented.
Besides, don't employers or this man's snooping Firm have to be invited to view a privately set Facebook?
Click to expand...

Bliss, Jul 24, 2011

#11
mama Well-Known Member

Tony Soprano said: ↑

Click to expand...

You're always good for a laugh Tony. :smt042

mama, Jul 24, 2011

#12
Bliss Well-Known Member

andreboba said: ↑

The dark side of the interwebz.

Privacy is king, when possible always use an alias and a ghost IP.

If you don't have a criminal record, someone checking out your social media history is just simple old bullshit.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%. Sound like there may be too many vindictive HR hiring people around today.

Btw, how do you acquire a ghost IP?

Bliss, Jul 24, 2011

#13
Bliss Well-Known Member

Tony Soprano said: ↑

Click to expand...

That is fine, but be careful -- if any employer tracked your (one picture) posts, they might think "hmmm, this man can't read".

Well that...or that you are in fact, Colin Powell.

Bliss, Jul 24, 2011

#14
Tony Soprano Moderator

Kunoichi said: ↑

That is fine, but be careful -- if any employer tracked your (one picture) posts, they might think "hmmm, this man can't read".

Well that...or that you are in fact, Colin Powell.
Click to expand...

Tony Soprano, Jul 24, 2011

#15
andreboba Well-Known Member

Kunoichi said: ↑

I agree 100%. Sound like there may be too many vindictive HR hiring people around today.

Btw, how do you acquire a ghost IP?
Click to expand...

Um, I mean surfing the Net with an IP that's not yours.

It's kind of a little bit illegal, I think.:smt024

I know people who know people(hobby hackers) who have hooked up my laptop.

CYA. Cover......Your.....Azz.

But if you put in time searching the interwebz, there are methods out there for most users to anonymously surf in cyberspace.

andreboba, Jul 25, 2011

#16
Bliss Well-Known Member

andreboba said: ↑

Um, I mean surfing the Net with an IP that's not yours.

It's kind of a little bit illegal, I think.:smt024

I know people who know people(hobby hackers) who have hooked up my laptop.

CYA. Cover......Your.....Azz.

But if you put in time searching the interwebz, there are methods out there for most users to anonymously surf in cyberspace.
Click to expand...

Oh you mean like tapping into your neighbor's wireless? LOL...So many firewalls today tho...and I wouldn't dare steal anyone elses' bandwidth/piggy back em, anyway, lol...

Bliss, Jul 25, 2011

#17
Bliss Well-Known Member
TreePixie said: ↑

And avoid using your real name *anywhere*.
Click to expand...

An update: I did some research and it seems unavoidable, because they can track any online purchase you made or even if you ordered a subscription or catelogue...kind of hard to buy things and not uses your cc that has your name on it...(so if any of ya'll have ordered a mag subscript to BigButtBertha or BigBlackDick Admirers, look lout!)
And yes I made those names up!

If you're job hunting or your employer wants to snoop..this website seems to to protect people. It digs deeper and finds everything with your name attached to it, and cleans it up -

http://www.reputation.com/

"Learn how everyday activities like buying groceries,
renewing a magazine subscription
or shopping online can expose your personal information,
leaving you vulnerable online."

Anyway, you do have to pay them I think its $5 a mnth, but I passed as I haven't done anything I have to hide, but I'm throwing it out there for those who want to go the step further than a google search.

Bliss, Jul 25, 2011

#18
- Like x 1
- List
curleyblonde New Member

The company I currently work for fired two employees for conversating on facebook during working hours. Apparently it was not a work related conversation, but nevertheless, the big boss found out and fired them both.

I have co workers on my FB who post comments throughout the working day all of the time and they haven't been caught yet, but it probably is only a matter of time.

curleyblonde, Jul 25, 2011

#19
Mikey Well-Known Member

That would mean that our potential future employers know that we have a fetish for white women's feet based on our postings here if they were to examine every one of our posts made here.

IMO, I find what the firm is doing too intrusive on us.

Mikey, Jul 26, 2011

#20

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