Is it fair for a job to discriminate for having fun in college? (facebook/myspace)

LaOs

Marty81 wrote: »

LaOs wrote: »

You can then limit further on specific items, like photos tagged of you. The description for that feature is as follows:

The setting for Photos Tagged of You does not prevent people from tagging you in photos; this only removes the link to view more photos of you from your profile. You will always be able to see your own tagged photos.

So, your friends can still tag you in their photos, but there's no way for an employer who searched-out your profile to get to those other photos, effectively making them non-existent (unless the employer knows your friends and searches them, goes through all their photos and sees you there).

If they can see your profile (which they need to in order to see your photos), then they could easily click on a couple of your friends and look at their photos. It'd take 10 minutes and a prospective employer would probably be willing to take those 10 minutes to see if there's anything you're trying to hide.

Shoot, I forgot about that part--if someone comes up in Search results, you can view their friends. I imagine this is so you can determine if the Joe Smith you're looking at is really your friends without having to go through the process of asking every Joe Smith to be your friend.

Fine. You can never get around someone randomly taking a photo of you or your friends randomly taking photos of you. I don't really care much for the rest of the argument, as I don't have incriminating photos of myself online (and if I did, realise I couldn't do much of anything about it anyway). I thought I was correcting a misconception about the privacy settings for Facebook which some people seemed worried about, but I was wrong and so will be going. Sorry for the derail.

Leitner

Nexelau wrote: »

amateurhour wrote: »

I'm just saying that if you can't be fired for things put online once you've been hired, what makes it fair for companies to use that same information to turn you down?

Is this even true? Maybe in the US?

I know that, when I was living in England, there were companies who fired people for something along the lines of "bringing the company into disrepute", normally quite big companies and important people involved in it. I also remember that a friend who worked for Games Workshop told me that he was angry because he got into trouble for being seen out drinking in what appeared to be company uniform.. it wasn't, but it was enough like said uniform to be frowned upon.

To be fair, Games Workshop does a lot of really shadey, boderline legality shit. They're a pretty poor example of the average company.

Nexelau

Leitner wrote: »

Nexelau wrote: »

amateurhour wrote: »

I'm just saying that if you can't be fired for things put online once you've been hired, what makes it fair for companies to use that same information to turn you down?

Is this even true? Maybe in the US?

I know that, when I was living in England, there were companies who fired people for something along the lines of "bringing the company into disrepute", normally quite big companies and important people involved in it. I also remember that a friend who worked for Games Workshop told me that he was angry because he got into trouble for being seen out drinking in what appeared to be company uniform.. it wasn't, but it was enough like said uniform to be frowned upon.

To be fair, Games Workshop does a lot of really shadey, boderline legality shit. They're a pretty poor example of the average company.

Good point.

But it does happen in other places as well, especially celebrities or politicians.. I mean, just look at Bill Clinton, and all the trouble he got in for getting a blowjob and then lying about it because it really was nobodies business outside his family.

Leitner

Nexelau wrote: »

But it does happen in other places as well, especially celebrities or politicians.. I mean, just look at Bill Clinton, and all the trouble he got in for getting a blowjob and then lying about it because it really was nobodies business outside his family.

Wasn't that more about lyng under oath?

Eat it You Nasty Pig.

Nexelau wrote: »

amateurhour wrote: »

I'm just saying that if you can't be fired for things put online once you've been hired, what makes it fair for companies to use that same information to turn you down?

Is this even true? Maybe in the US?

No, it isn't true in the U.S. Especially if you live in an at-will employment state, you can be fired for pretty much anything the employer wants.

There are a limited number of protected circumstances for which you cannot be fired (race, gender, religion, certain medical conditions), but "people who post dumb pictures of themselves online" are not such a protected class.

Nexelau

Wasn't that more about lyng under oath?

Well.. I was going to say "Yeah, but they considered it a big enough deal to make him answer under oath."

But, checking Wikipedia, it was because of a related law suit.. or something.. bah, confusing me >.<

Absurdist

amateurhour wrote: »

This actually started in the help advice thread when a kid had a question about facebook

ViolentChemistry wrote: »

On the second day of my criminal justice class the professor informed us that she knew which ones of us smoked and which ones drank underage because she too has a school e-mail address and checked out everyone's facebook. She then told the class not to publish photographs of themselves committing crimes, as employers and teachers will totally look and see.

Edit: She didn't catch me though because I didn't have facebook. :^:

I had a friend get turned down by a job, he had a decent GPA, a good resume, and a myspace that had photos of him getting hammered, and he was in clubs like "beer pong 4-evA!" Myspace was stil relatively (within 10 million people) new when we got on it our senior year, but even then our professors were saying, "I know shit like that is fun now guys, but either make it a legitimate, "about me" webpage, or don't make it, because every major employer checks myspace (and facebook) now, and while they don't tell you about it, they will descriminate against you based on that online profile."

Is this right? I know the company can basically do what it wants behind closed doors, but any company that hires kids right out of college you think would expect a little craziness. ::shrug::

If you don't want your blog/myspace/facebook/etc. to be treated as public domain information, you should make it private.

Once you've put information in the public domain that can be construed as reflecting on your character (in a way not explicitly covered by state and federal non-discrimination statutes), that information can be used against you.

Be smart.

Al_wat

A lot of the pictures of me on facebook are when I am drinking or at a party. I'm stoned in a lot of them too, but its not like you can tell.

I do actively untag photos of me actually smoking weed though.

Tigress

Most of my MySpace pics are of me in various cosplays. The only reason I have it is to keep in touch with my convention buddies and to drum up interest in my taking commissions. So if an employer doesn't want to hire me because I like to make and wear silly costumes, I probably don't want to work for them in the first place. However, most employers are really impressed that I know how to sew and can turn a 2D picture into a 3D garment. It shows them that I'm extremely creative and a cracker-jack problem solver.

Also, box? There is a box somewhere in my general vicinity? That I think outside of?