Social Media & Employment

                Personally, I don’t see a huge problem with the viewing of social media by employers, as long as the information viewed is accessed in a way that is knowingly allowed by the potential employee. People should be directly responsible for what they post on the internet under their own name and knowingly make open to others to view. If an employer sees something that that they feel reflects badly on the person that they are considering for a position, then they should be allowed to make that decision. Posting (publicly) to social media is no different than making any other kind of open public statement, and the consequences of making that statement shouldn’t change based solely on the context.

                On the other hand, employers should not be able to access information about their current or potential employees that they would not have access to otherwise. Companies contacting Facebook directly for the disclosure of information should not be allowed, because it is not information that is willingly given. While viewing information that is made public is like any other public statement, viewing information that would be otherwise hidden is similar to an illegal search of your property. Unfortunately, this is not actually the case, as any information posted to Facebook becomes property useable by the company. So, unless the current policies are changed, it will remain legal for Facebook to divulge that information to those they agree to give it to. Regardless of the similarity to other legal issues, the terms agreed to by those who use it will govern the status of the information posted. Currently, any who use Facebook have made an official statement that they are aware of this fact, and are willing to comply with those standards (regardless of whether they actually read the documents or not).

                All in all, I believe that social media should remain a source of information useable by employers to research the people they hire. The only changes that need to take place are the establishment of direct user control over what information they choose to be open for review by certain viewers. That way, employers will still have a source for information, but users of social media will still be able to retain their privacy.