Without getting too heavily into it, that should be illegal IMO.
In the very least, should require specifically given consent to be allowed
Why though, it's publicly available information, it'd be like making a billboard about your life then complaining when everyone knows about your life. The stuff you do with your social media mains is actually hilariously important. Always has been, always will be. Public postings on the internet have literally the least expectation of privacy in the history of the world.
Most of the time it's more like someone put an embarassing photo of you up on the wall in a bar and they'd only see it if they specifically went looking for it though.
Yep, if you don't want people to look at your stuff, set to private. The first expectation is that you're not a public imbecile. Do what you want in private, but publicly accessible is fair game.
You wouldn't want to hire someone known for making inappropriate passes at people on LinkedIn, would you?
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EncA Fool with CompassionPronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered Userregular
Without getting too heavily into it, that should be illegal IMO.
In the very least, should require specifically given consent to be allowed
If you take a dump of your opinions in public on a platform designed to shout them from the rooftop and make everyone you know be able to see that stuff, someone hearing it that you don't want to is precisely a you problem.
Nobody makes you put yourself on the internet. Curate what you do.
I'm not worried about myself in all this. I have enough connections and enough people at the very top know what I do that I'll fall upwards regardless of the outcome of this. I've had people reach out to that regard already and folks try to steal me from this project each year.
The problem is my people. They are A-grade talent, entry level folks that (in many cases) are currently dependent upon the salaries and benefits we are offering for their health and their family's well-being. I've worked too hard and too long to let these kids get tossed aside by this shit. Even if the worst happens, they will have some excellent experience and references, but one just had major surgery and another has a young child. None of that will make job hunting here easier, especially as this budget crunch is likely leading to the cutting of a lot of the lowest tier of talent across the entire university.
Okay, so, this is super noble of you.
But
That's not your job. Specifically, it's not your job to be their personal life security. You are literally doing all you can to keep their jobs secure, and that's awesome, but honestly, truly? You're probably already doing more than you should feel obligated to do. You need to find a mental space where you can empathize with them but let the guilt just pass through you, because all you can do at the end of the day is be a good boss and a good reference.
Yea, I hire for a lot of public facing positions. People who are going to be representing the company at tradeshows, during interviews, managing corporate social media accounts, emailing/DMing with customers and fans - if you think my first stop on the interview tour isn't hunting down the person's social media output you're nuts.
The first things that are telling are if I'm even able to find it, and then if I do: is it locked down so I can't really see anything or is it open for the world to see. If it's open for the world to see then what am I seeing? If it's locked down I would neeeeeeever ask for someone to show me or "friend" them so that I can see. I've heard horror stories of people being asked to unlock their accounts during interviews and fuck that noise.
But am I going to take a look at what you're putting about into the void about yourself? Darn tootin'.
Librarian's ghostLibrarian, Ghostbuster, and TimSporkRegistered Userregular
I've been practicing using chop sticks by eating potato chips with them. I was just walking around the library and apparently blew everyone's minds? It didn't seem that hard.
Because what I, or anyone else, get up to outside of work is none of anyone at my work's damn business, outside of very fringe cases.
And also you're basically reliant on your prospective employer's opinion on your personal life! Fuck that. I mean sure ideally your social media stuff would be private but Facebook does not, as standard, do that and not everyone knows that.
That is why all my social media is in the fake name John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt, na nananananana
Uh that name is my name too!
You have any problems whenever you go out?
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minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
It has, on more than one occasion, prevented us from hiring literal nazis, so I'm cool with using the things people post publicly to the internet for everyone to see as a means to judge their character and ability to represent my company.
Stuff you post on public social media profiles should be no more protected than stuff you shout in public while drunk at a bar. It's public, and there's no expectation of privacy.
I also see lots of people getting drunk, stoned, and having fun. Which is cool. I don't care what you do in your free time. But if you're posting rants about the jews ruining the country, and the "white genocide" that "the blacks" are perpetuating on you, then no, I will not have you represent me and my company in any fashion. These are very different things, and there is no slippery slope in existance that could bridge them.
Ah, it stinks, it sucks, it's anthropologically unjust
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
I've been practicing using chop sticks by eating potato chips with them. I was just walking around the library and apparently blew everyone's minds? It didn't seem that hard.
Try to catch some flies with them!
I've heard that's something you can do if you truly master using chopsticks!
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
Without getting too heavily into it, that should be illegal IMO.
In the very least, should require specifically given consent to be allowed
If you take a dump of your opinions in public on a platform designed to shout them from the rooftop and make everyone you know be able to see that stuff, someone hearing it that you don't want to is precisely a you problem.
Nobody makes you put yourself on the internet. Curate what you do.
It's borderline "if you didn't do anything wrong you have nothing to hide."
You can dislike the concept without being a bad person for doing so. I don't particularly like it, even if I do make most of my comments private. For some racism is their no-go for others it's "plays video games and will call in sick when there's a major release."
It doesn't always have to be a legit bad thing, just a somewhat specious bad thing to the person that's doing the hiring.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Yeah and I totally get that and it's absolutely reasonable when it's to not hire Nazis etc, but not every employer is as reasonable or considered as you. Some employers will look at what you put on social media, even if you personally think it's highly curated and reasonable, and deny you a job based on it. I don't think that's okay.
And generally, in the war between the rights of an Employer and the rights of an Employee, prospective or otherwise, I will back the Employee. Not like there's too many Employee rights as it stands, you know?
Yeah and I totally get that and it's absolutely reasonable when it's to not hire Nazis etc, but not every employer is as reasonable or considered as you. Some employers will look at what you put on social media, even if you personally think it's highly curated and reasonable, and deny you a job based on it. I don't think that's okay.
And generally, in the war between the rights of an Employer and the rights of an Employee, prospective or otherwise, I will back the Employee. Not like there's too many Employee rights as it stands, you know?
That's all fair.
This is why I hide my D&D stuff on facebook usually. I talked about this the other day in another thread, but I still legit get questioned if I worship satan because of it. Old people are dumb and weird and I'd really like to not give them more ammunition to use against me if at all possible.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Without getting too heavily into it, that should be illegal IMO.
In the very least, should require specifically given consent to be allowed
Sure but now you're not allowed to go into anyone's social media looking for receipts because you are here saying their job shouldn't be able to do anything about it.
Because what I, or anyone else, get up to outside of work is none of anyone at my work's damn business, outside of very fringe cases.
And also you're basically reliant on your prospective employer's opinion on your personal life! Fuck that. I mean sure ideally your social media stuff would be private but Facebook does not, as standard, do that and not everyone knows that.
It is if you're representing your company.
Would you want one of your customer or clients or whatever digging up info about someone working under you, and then losing all that business altogether because you hired someone posting bigoted memes all over Facebook or Twitter or what have you?
If I'm hiring someone, I wouldn't want to lose all that business. I wouldn't want a bigot to represent me. If you did know that you were hiring one, what will happen is that you'll lose the business from people who aren't out and out bigots. If you hired a MAGA person, everyone who is offput by that isn't going to do business with you, nor want anything to do with you. The people who will buy your products or use your services or whatever are only doing so because the are bigots too
And would you want to hire an employee making a hostile working place? Would you want a TERF working with your transgender people, making their lives hell and reducing their ability to work? And also opening yourself up to a lawsuit for discrimination because you knowingly hired a TERF?
If someone is a bigot on their own time, but not out-and-out about it, posting memes all over the electronic void, then you couldn't have done anything ahead of time to not hire them. You're not intentionally hiring a TERF to your knowledge.
If they expose themselves as a bigot, then that's a different story altogether. But you should at least do some gatekeeping.
P.S. Representing a company doesn't mean necessarily posting on social media. It is going to trade shows as an official representative. It's working with clients and customers and talking with anyone in the public at all.
Yep, if you don't want people to look at your stuff, set to private.
This only works if something like Facebook maintains your privacy settings.
Which it doesn't. It has a history of pushing people set at private back into public without their knowledge or consent.
Then don't use Facebook or curate more heavily. Part of modern work is having awareness of public vs private forums and what's appropriate for each as you do represent your company at conferences etc.
As a result, if you don't maintain content or settings it says that you can't be relied on to do the same with work related items.
Are some workplaces unreasonable? Sure, don't work for them if you can avoid it. It doesn't mean social media isn't a legitimate check, as it's just an expansion on references.
Without getting too heavily into it, that should be illegal IMO.
In the very least, should require specifically given consent to be allowed
Sure but now you're not allowed to go into anyone's social media looking for receipts because you are here saying their job shouldn't be able to do anything about it.
You can't have it both ways
Reciepts?
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
Yep, if you don't want people to look at your stuff, set to private.
This only works if something like Facebook maintains your privacy settings.
Which it doesn't. It has a history of pushing people set at private back into public without their knowledge or consent.
Then don't use Facebook or curate more heavily. Part of modern work is having awareness of public vs private forums and what's appropriate for each as you do represent your company at conferences etc.
As a result, if you don't maintain content or settings it says that you can't be relied on to do the same with work related items.
Are some workplaces unreasonable? Sure, don't work for them if you can avoid it. It doesn't mean social media isn't a legitimate check, as it's just an expansion on references.
Ahaha okay, let's get into this:
As a democratic socialist, if my prospective employer doesn't like my political affiliation they can refuse to hire me.
And they are completely immune from any repercussions from that biased decision.
In fact if the person conducting that "research" doesn't like any of my personal views (ones that aren't heinous like racism/bigotry), they can choose to not hire me.
Because what I, or anyone else, get up to outside of work is none of anyone at my work's damn business, outside of very fringe cases.
And also you're basically reliant on your prospective employer's opinion on your personal life! Fuck that. I mean sure ideally your social media stuff would be private but Facebook does not, as standard, do that and not everyone knows that.
It is if you're representing your company.
Would you want one of your customer or clients or whatever digging up info about someone working under you, and then losing all that business altogether because you hired someone posting bigoted memes all over Facebook or Twitter or what have you?
If I'm hiring someone, I wouldn't want to lose all that business. I wouldn't want a bigot to represent me. If you did know that you were hiring one, what will happen is that you'll lose the business from people who aren't out and out bigots. If you hired a MAGA person, everyone who is offput by that isn't going to do business with you, nor want anything to do with you. The people who will buy your products or use your services or whatever are only doing so because the are bigots too
And would you want to hire an employee making a hostile working place? Would you want a TERF working with your transgender people, making their lives hell and reducing their ability to work? And also opening yourself up to a lawsuit for discrimination because you knowingly hired a TERF?
If someone is a bigot on their own time, but not out-and-out about it, posting memes all over the electronic void, then you couldn't have done anything ahead of time to not hire them. You're not intentionally hiring a TERF to your knowledge.
If they expose themselves as a bigot, then that's a different story altogether. But you should at least do some gatekeeping.
P.S. Representing a company doesn't mean necessarily posting on social media. It is going to trade shows as an official representative. It's working with clients and customers and talking with anyone in the public at all.
It's awash with some really atrocious shit historically. You do some research on a potential employee, find out they have kids, but the job you're offering has some travel time. That's technically illegal but now you've opened pandora's box you can't really shut it. Maybe you discover they have diabetes and you don't want to push the cost of healthcare up for you and your employees because you're now covering them as part of the group's plan. Maybe you found out they're 60 even though they look 40 and they'd maybe only work for you for 5-7 years at the most. You want their expertise, but you want to fire them on your time.
To take this a step further: You're a shitty person in charge of hiring for a company, you want to hire this nice white gentleman, except you discover one of his parents is black, and you're a shitty racist so now you won't hire them, even though your boss is pushing to diversify.
It's just a shitshow all around. There's a reason we don't let employers just start asking dumb questions like "are you old?" or "tell me about your genealogy"
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Because what I, or anyone else, get up to outside of work is none of anyone at my work's damn business, outside of very fringe cases.
And also you're basically reliant on your prospective employer's opinion on your personal life! Fuck that. I mean sure ideally your social media stuff would be private but Facebook does not, as standard, do that and not everyone knows that.
It is if you're representing your company.
Would you want one of your customer or clients or whatever digging up info about someone working under you, and then losing all that business altogether because you hired someone posting bigoted memes all over Facebook or Twitter or what have you?
If I'm hiring someone, I wouldn't want to lose all that business. I wouldn't want a bigot to represent me. If you did know that you were hiring one, what will happen is that you'll lose the business from people who aren't out and out bigots. If you hired a MAGA person, everyone who is offput by that isn't going to do business with you, nor want anything to do with you. The people who will buy your products or use your services or whatever are only doing so because the are bigots too
And would you want to hire an employee making a hostile working place? Would you want a TERF working with your transgender people, making their lives hell and reducing their ability to work? And also opening yourself up to a lawsuit for discrimination because you knowingly hired a TERF?
If someone is a bigot on their own time, but not out-and-out about it, posting memes all over the electronic void, then you couldn't have done anything ahead of time to not hire them. You're not intentionally hiring a TERF to your knowledge.
If they expose themselves as a bigot, then that's a different story altogether. But you should at least do some gatekeeping.
P.S. Representing a company doesn't mean necessarily posting on social media. It is going to trade shows as an official representative. It's working with clients and customers and talking with anyone in the public at all.
Then ask questions about it in the interview. That's fair, and honest and open, compared to looking up their Facebook posts and deciding if you like them anyway.
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minor incidentexpert in a dying fieldnjRegistered Userregular
I mean shit it's been a struggle to get people to hire women because of the dumb old boys club and preconceived sexist thinking. Why do you want to give those people more tools to be shitheads just because of the off chance someone might be a nazi?
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I don't call it a cyberpunk dystopia for nothing guys. You made a bunch of information about yourself available in a data source you have little if any control over. Why do we keep doing that?
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Because what I, or anyone else, get up to outside of work is none of anyone at my work's damn business, outside of very fringe cases.
And also you're basically reliant on your prospective employer's opinion on your personal life! Fuck that. I mean sure ideally your social media stuff would be private but Facebook does not, as standard, do that and not everyone knows that.
It is if you're representing your company.
Would you want one of your customer or clients or whatever digging up info about someone working under you, and then losing all that business altogether because you hired someone posting bigoted memes all over Facebook or Twitter or what have you?
If I'm hiring someone, I wouldn't want to lose all that business. I wouldn't want a bigot to represent me. If you did know that you were hiring one, what will happen is that you'll lose the business from people who aren't out and out bigots. If you hired a MAGA person, everyone who is offput by that isn't going to do business with you, nor want anything to do with you. The people who will buy your products or use your services or whatever are only doing so because the are bigots too
And would you want to hire an employee making a hostile working place? Would you want a TERF working with your transgender people, making their lives hell and reducing their ability to work? And also opening yourself up to a lawsuit for discrimination because you knowingly hired a TERF?
If someone is a bigot on their own time, but not out-and-out about it, posting memes all over the electronic void, then you couldn't have done anything ahead of time to not hire them. You're not intentionally hiring a TERF to your knowledge.
If they expose themselves as a bigot, then that's a different story altogether. But you should at least do some gatekeeping.
P.S. Representing a company doesn't mean necessarily posting on social media. It is going to trade shows as an official representative. It's working with clients and customers and talking with anyone in the public at all.
Then ask questions about it in the interview. That's fair, and honest and open, compared to looking up their Facebook posts and deciding if you like them anyway.
People lie. All the time. It seems you can get a better idea of a person based on what they post more anonymously.
See also, this:
If someone is posting Nazi memes all over the place, but I ask them if they're a Nazi, they'll say no to get a job. And then continue to be a Nazi.
I think we are talking past one another a bit here. I suspect that things we can agree on:
1. Don't Hire, Do Punch, Nazis
2. Your potential employer will probably look at your social media stuff, whether they should or not, because corporations gonna corporation
3. This is sometimes useful for not hiring nazis! This is good!
4. Your potential employer may be a shithead who won't hire you because your volunteer work at the homeless shelter and posts about "maybe healthcare" marked you as a "libtard" This is bad!
5. In an ideal world, we'd have a system that just let us avoid hiring shit-heads while not letting shit-heads discriminate against nice people.
6. We don't have that.
Hell a large part of why I just deleted my facebook is because if I go into bio-tech I'm going to be dealing with a lot of libertarian tech-bros and startup culture that casts a hell of a side eye towards socialism, and I don't want my political beliefs to knock me before I even get a foot in the door.
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Zonugal(He/Him) The Holiday ArmadilloI'm Santa's representative for all the southern states. And Mexico!Registered Userregular
Yep, if you don't want people to look at your stuff, set to private.
This only works if something like Facebook maintains your privacy settings.
Which it doesn't. It has a history of pushing people set at private back into public without their knowledge or consent.
I don't know if you've taken this step, but that's a big reason why every teacher I know uses facebook under a fake name. Just in case.
Yeah my friend was finishing her teaching degree on a scholarship and one of the stipulations of the scholarship was "maintaining a professional attitude always, on or off school grounds" so when we had parties she would literally run from the camera. It was a little insane.
I don't call it a cyberpunk dystopia for nothing guys. You made a bunch of information about yourself available in a data source you have little if any control over. Why do we keep doing that?
Because people don't know about that kind of thing and there is no social structure to teach them. People don't know about the safety of their data, people don't know that their employer will watch them on social media.
I think we are talking past one another a bit here. I suspect that things we can agree on:
1. Don't Hire, Do Punch, Nazis
2. Your potential employer will probably look at your social media stuff, whether they should or not, because corporations gonna corporation
3. This is sometimes useful for not hiring nazis! This is good!
4. Your potential employer may be a shithead who won't hire you because your volunteer work at the homeless shelter and posts about "maybe healthcare" marked you as a "libtard" This is bad!
5. In an ideal world, we'd have a system that just let us avoid hiring shit-heads while not letting shit-heads discriminate against nice people.
6. We don't have that.
Hell a large part of why I just deleted my facebook is because if I go into bio-tech I'm going to be dealing with a lot of libertarian tech-bros and startup culture that casts a hell of a side eye towards socialism, and I don't want my political beliefs to knock me before I even get a foot in the door.
Google and some sites archive whatever was public, so just be vaguely aware of that if they pre-googled you before you walk in the door if you had that stuff open for the public to see before on twitter or something.
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
Like we have people saying in this thread "I deleted my Facebook so my Employer can't see I'm left wing" and I think that's pretty awful. I appreciate the dedication we have here to "fuck Nazis" but I don't believe corporate hiring managers are watching out for hard-right Republicans and Tories in case they slip through the net into the company, you know?
I don't call it a cyberpunk dystopia for nothing guys. You made a bunch of information about yourself available in a data source you have little if any control over. Why do we keep doing that?
Because people don't know about that kind of thing and there is no social structure to teach them. People don't know about the safety of their data, people don't know that their employer will watch them on social media.
Shit there's been a dozen or so news reports of a person getting fired because they said "gosh my job sucks". How many of us have said that? Can you imagine losing your job because you had a rough day at work and your boss is an asshole (they usually all are)..
not a doctor, not a lawyer, examples I use may not be fully researched so don't take out of context plz, don't @ me
I don't call it a cyberpunk dystopia for nothing guys. You made a bunch of information about yourself available in a data source you have little if any control over. Why do we keep doing that?
Because people don't know about that kind of thing and there is no social structure to teach them. People don't know about the safety of their data, people don't know that their employer will watch them on social media.
We knew 10 years ago that employers were checking social media accounts.
If someone could get access to my public info its like my LiveJournal from High School, a Tumblr I haven't logged into in like 5 years and use to just be full of comic books and movie trailers anyway, and if they can see my Facebook, its just memes and a lot of left leaning political stuff.
Posts
Most of the time it's more like someone put an embarassing photo of you up on the wall in a bar and they'd only see it if they specifically went looking for it though.
You wouldn't want to hire someone known for making inappropriate passes at people on LinkedIn, would you?
If you take a dump of your opinions in public on a platform designed to shout them from the rooftop and make everyone you know be able to see that stuff, someone hearing it that you don't want to is precisely a you problem.
Nobody makes you put yourself on the internet. Curate what you do.
Okay, so, this is super noble of you.
But
That's not your job. Specifically, it's not your job to be their personal life security. You are literally doing all you can to keep their jobs secure, and that's awesome, but honestly, truly? You're probably already doing more than you should feel obligated to do. You need to find a mental space where you can empathize with them but let the guilt just pass through you, because all you can do at the end of the day is be a good boss and a good reference.
The first things that are telling are if I'm even able to find it, and then if I do: is it locked down so I can't really see anything or is it open for the world to see. If it's open for the world to see then what am I seeing? If it's locked down I would neeeeeeever ask for someone to show me or "friend" them so that I can see. I've heard horror stories of people being asked to unlock their accounts during interviews and fuck that noise.
But am I going to take a look at what you're putting about into the void about yourself? Darn tootin'.
And also you're basically reliant on your prospective employer's opinion on your personal life! Fuck that. I mean sure ideally your social media stuff would be private but Facebook does not, as standard, do that and not everyone knows that.
You have any problems whenever you go out?
Stuff you post on public social media profiles should be no more protected than stuff you shout in public while drunk at a bar. It's public, and there's no expectation of privacy.
I also see lots of people getting drunk, stoned, and having fun. Which is cool. I don't care what you do in your free time. But if you're posting rants about the jews ruining the country, and the "white genocide" that "the blacks" are perpetuating on you, then no, I will not have you represent me and my company in any fashion. These are very different things, and there is no slippery slope in existance that could bridge them.
Try to catch some flies with them!
I've heard that's something you can do if you truly master using chopsticks!
This only works if something like Facebook maintains your privacy settings.
Which it doesn't. It has a history of pushing people set at private back into public without their knowledge or consent.
It's borderline "if you didn't do anything wrong you have nothing to hide."
You can dislike the concept without being a bad person for doing so. I don't particularly like it, even if I do make most of my comments private. For some racism is their no-go for others it's "plays video games and will call in sick when there's a major release."
It doesn't always have to be a legit bad thing, just a somewhat specious bad thing to the person that's doing the hiring.
And generally, in the war between the rights of an Employer and the rights of an Employee, prospective or otherwise, I will back the Employee. Not like there's too many Employee rights as it stands, you know?
I think there was a story from like today or yesterday about how Facebook was giving access to your DMs to various companies
So like, cool cool guys
That's all fair.
This is why I hide my D&D stuff on facebook usually. I talked about this the other day in another thread, but I still legit get questioned if I worship satan because of it. Old people are dumb and weird and I'd really like to not give them more ammunition to use against me if at all possible.
Sure but now you're not allowed to go into anyone's social media looking for receipts because you are here saying their job shouldn't be able to do anything about it.
You can't have it both ways
It is if you're representing your company.
Would you want one of your customer or clients or whatever digging up info about someone working under you, and then losing all that business altogether because you hired someone posting bigoted memes all over Facebook or Twitter or what have you?
If I'm hiring someone, I wouldn't want to lose all that business. I wouldn't want a bigot to represent me. If you did know that you were hiring one, what will happen is that you'll lose the business from people who aren't out and out bigots. If you hired a MAGA person, everyone who is offput by that isn't going to do business with you, nor want anything to do with you. The people who will buy your products or use your services or whatever are only doing so because the are bigots too
And would you want to hire an employee making a hostile working place? Would you want a TERF working with your transgender people, making their lives hell and reducing their ability to work? And also opening yourself up to a lawsuit for discrimination because you knowingly hired a TERF?
If someone is a bigot on their own time, but not out-and-out about it, posting memes all over the electronic void, then you couldn't have done anything ahead of time to not hire them. You're not intentionally hiring a TERF to your knowledge.
If they expose themselves as a bigot, then that's a different story altogether. But you should at least do some gatekeeping.
P.S. Representing a company doesn't mean necessarily posting on social media. It is going to trade shows as an official representative. It's working with clients and customers and talking with anyone in the public at all.
Then don't use Facebook or curate more heavily. Part of modern work is having awareness of public vs private forums and what's appropriate for each as you do represent your company at conferences etc.
As a result, if you don't maintain content or settings it says that you can't be relied on to do the same with work related items.
Are some workplaces unreasonable? Sure, don't work for them if you can avoid it. It doesn't mean social media isn't a legitimate check, as it's just an expansion on references.
Reciepts?
Ahaha okay, let's get into this:
As a democratic socialist, if my prospective employer doesn't like my political affiliation they can refuse to hire me.
And they are completely immune from any repercussions from that biased decision.
In fact if the person conducting that "research" doesn't like any of my personal views (ones that aren't heinous like racism/bigotry), they can choose to not hire me.
And that is fucking awful.
Everyone always shouts at me because someone else with the same name as me is a nuisance who keeps getting arrested for public nudity!
At least I know who it is now.
It's awash with some really atrocious shit historically. You do some research on a potential employee, find out they have kids, but the job you're offering has some travel time. That's technically illegal but now you've opened pandora's box you can't really shut it. Maybe you discover they have diabetes and you don't want to push the cost of healthcare up for you and your employees because you're now covering them as part of the group's plan. Maybe you found out they're 60 even though they look 40 and they'd maybe only work for you for 5-7 years at the most. You want their expertise, but you want to fire them on your time.
To take this a step further: You're a shitty person in charge of hiring for a company, you want to hire this nice white gentleman, except you discover one of his parents is black, and you're a shitty racist so now you won't hire them, even though your boss is pushing to diversify.
It's just a shitshow all around. There's a reason we don't let employers just start asking dumb questions like "are you old?" or "tell me about your genealogy"
Then ask questions about it in the interview. That's fair, and honest and open, compared to looking up their Facebook posts and deciding if you like them anyway.
I don't know if you've taken this step, but that's a big reason why every teacher I know uses facebook under a fake name. Just in case.
By virtue of being an employee of a business/company, you inherently represent the company.
People lie. All the time. It seems you can get a better idea of a person based on what they post more anonymously.
See also, this:
If someone is posting Nazi memes all over the place, but I ask them if they're a Nazi, they'll say no to get a job. And then continue to be a Nazi.
1. Don't Hire, Do Punch, Nazis
2. Your potential employer will probably look at your social media stuff, whether they should or not, because corporations gonna corporation
3. This is sometimes useful for not hiring nazis! This is good!
4. Your potential employer may be a shithead who won't hire you because your volunteer work at the homeless shelter and posts about "maybe healthcare" marked you as a "libtard" This is bad!
5. In an ideal world, we'd have a system that just let us avoid hiring shit-heads while not letting shit-heads discriminate against nice people.
6. We don't have that.
Hell a large part of why I just deleted my facebook is because if I go into bio-tech I'm going to be dealing with a lot of libertarian tech-bros and startup culture that casts a hell of a side eye towards socialism, and I don't want my political beliefs to knock me before I even get a foot in the door.
Yeah it's something I'll likely have to do once I'm officially a teacher.
Yeah my friend was finishing her teaching degree on a scholarship and one of the stipulations of the scholarship was "maintaining a professional attitude always, on or off school grounds" so when we had parties she would literally run from the camera. It was a little insane.
Because people don't know about that kind of thing and there is no social structure to teach them. People don't know about the safety of their data, people don't know that their employer will watch them on social media.
Google and some sites archive whatever was public, so just be vaguely aware of that if they pre-googled you before you walk in the door if you had that stuff open for the public to see before on twitter or something.
Shit there's been a dozen or so news reports of a person getting fired because they said "gosh my job sucks". How many of us have said that? Can you imagine losing your job because you had a rough day at work and your boss is an asshole (they usually all are)..
We knew 10 years ago that employers were checking social media accounts.